COCOON

1 a : an envelope often largely of silk which an insect larva forms about itself and in which it passes the pupa stage


A friend gave me a book I've never read for my birthday and the title immediately intrigued me: When The Heart Waits.  The book itself has intrigued me even more.  It's a book to savor and read slowly.  I'm reading one chapter at a time to let the words, thoughts and images sink down into my heart before moving on.  In the first chapter, Sue Monk Kidd talks about being in the midst of a spiritual crisis moment and crying out to God for a sign, for an answer.  Instead of an answer, she turned around to find a cocoon hanging in a tree.  From there, she saw butterflies and cocoons everywhere - in a childhood book remembered, in an art gallery, through a gift from a friend.  "Sometimes God is funny about pointing things out again and again," I thought to myself and smiled as I read.

Ahem.

Shortly after that I realized I had been seeing butterflies everywhere myself: in Flight Behavior, in birthday art created especially for me by a friend, in the When The Heart Waits book.  Since 2009, I have associated butterflies with faith.  That was the year B found a monarch caterpillar and brought him home for us to witness his transformation as a family.  I wrote about that experience back then (if you follow the link, start at the bottom and read your way up) and as I re-read those posts this morning, tears came.  I am still awed by the contrast of my fear and B's quiet confidence.  She had complete faith that her caterpillar Artie would emerge as the butterfly he was meant to be.  And she was right.

So why am I seeing butterfly imagery everywhere lately?  (I will confess I am wearing a dress with butterflies printed all over it as I type this - completely unintentional.)  I suspect God is trying to tell me something.  Sue Monk Kidd's words about waiting in her book have certainly resonated with me.  I want to be patient in the waiting, relinquish my own desire to control the outcome and trust that what emerges will be transformed.

That is more difficult than it sounds.  I do long for this decade of my life to be about transformation.  I want to be what I was really made to be, not what I think I should be.  I want to see myself truly and live boldly.  But in order to get there, I have to give myself over to the waiting in the cocoon.  Even that is harder than I would like for it to be.  If I could slip into a chrysalis and hang there all alone for a few days or weeks, that might be easy to settle down for.  Instead, I have to give myself over to waiting for transformation while teaching, chauffeuring, parenting and managing my family.

Will it be worth it?  Can I wait patiently to become someone worth knowing, loving and doing life alongside?  Can I really change and stay transformed?  Because as I read those posts from 2009, I am feeling much the same way right now - low on solitude, like what I need is distasteful to others and hard to come by, afraid I won't ever emerge from this season.  Am I even ready to emerge as a butterfly at the other end of my time in the cocoon?  I'm not sure a butterfly is the animal I would choose to represent me, but I do love that butterflies move lightly and quickly through life, touching down gently, leaving a small wake of beauty as they go.  That I could buy in to.

RELEASE

1 : to set free from restraint, confinement, or servitude

The day after Artie the Monarch Butterfly emerged from his chrysalis, B set him free. She knew he needed to head to Mexico, as all monarchs do. But she wanted some of her friends to get to see him "live and in person," not just via a picture that I had e-mailed for her teacher to share with the class. So I picked up Artie in his butterfly tent and met B after school.

K was the first one to emerge from the building. She was excited to see Artie and immediately began calling friends over to see him. But that was nothing compared to when B walked out. Her face lit up when she saw me holding the butterfly tent and she called to her friends, "Come see Artie!" In this picture, one of B's friends is literally jumping up and down with excitement.

It wasn't long before children younger and older than B were hesitantly coming up to her and asking to see Artie. I gave her some time to show him off and asked a few times, "Has everyone seen him?" The librarian came over to see him. B took him up for the principal and teachers to see. She shared him with friends from last year's class, friends from this year's class and curious onlookers.

And then it was time to let him go. I went over to B, who was surrounded by children. I asked her one last time if she'd shown Artie to everyone that she wanted to. She agreed that she had. I told her I thought it was time to let him go and asked a few children to let me into the circle to help her unzip the top of the tent while holding it aloft.

When I went home to pick Artie up and bring him to school, it was obvious that his wings were ready and he was anxious to get going. While he spent the first 18 to 24 hours perched quietly and moving only occasionally, he was flapping around his tent consistently by the 36 hour mark. I expected him to bolt when Bekah opened the tent, so I had the camera ready.

Bekah unzipped the tent. Artie perched on the edge.










And he stayed there. In fact, the children were moving around more than he was.

So I reached out to him and he went onto my finger. He stayed there, seeming to take things in. And as Bekah moved over to get him onto her finger, he left. He circled up, circled again and was gone.









And Bekah was happy for him. There were no tears shed. She did exactly what Artie needed in the time he was with her. She trusted her instincts and fed him what he needed. She provided him with a safe place to live and cleaned out his home. She procured a bigger home for him, with the help of a kind and loving teacher. She watched and waited, never losing faith, while he stayed in his chrysalis for longer than we expected. She was, in fact, the mother I hope to be.

I want to give my children what they need, but not hover, not worry over the outcome. I want to do what I can to train them, shape them and love them. I want to trust that I know what is best for my daughters. And I want to not cry when I release them, but be thankful for the time I had with them.

RELIEF

2 a : removal or lightening of something oppressive, painful, or distressing

Ahh, how things can change in twenty-four hours. Yesterday, I was mentally composing a post that could have been called "fear" or "disappointment." But today the post is "relief" because B's butterfly Artie emerged from his chrysalis today. I was not sure this would happen.

This time yesterday, the chrysalis looked dry, dark and decayed. Just this morning, I admitted to B that I was worried about Artie. Our conversation went something like this (inner thoughts italicized):

Me: "B, I'm a little worried about Artie." (How do I tell her Artie might not live to be a butterfly?)

B, as she climbs up on the stool to get a better look: "I think he's supposed to look that way. You can kind of see his antenna through the chrysalis. I'll ask Mrs. R about it at school today." (What does Mom know anyway? He's FINE.)

Me: "Well, OK." (At least I've planted the seed. Now when nothing happens, maybe she won't be as heartbroken.)

Today was day 15 in the chrysalis and the book we read said 5 to 15 days was a normal time frame. While I didn't come out and say it to B, I was contemplating how long we would let it go before offering to bury tiny Artie in the backyard. I was wondering how to explain that it was time to give up hope.

But when I went in the kitchen shortly after 9 this morning, there was a butterfly perched in its tent, beautiful, fully formed and alive. As usual, B was right to not give up hope and I was too quick to assume the worst.

I debated about whether to entitle this post JOY or RELIEF because both emotions flooded me when I saw Artie hanging there out of his cocoon. RELIEF won out because while I would have been disappointed if Artie hadn't made it, B would have been heartbroken. My immediate impulse was to dash to school, get B dismissed and bring her home to see Artie for herself. Quickly ruling that out, I next contemplated calling and asking to speak with her. I finally ended up going to the school and showing her pictures. She was excited, but she wasn't relieved. You see, she hadn't been worried in the first place.

I'm not sure what the lesson in all of this is. Maybe it's that transitions take longer than I want. Maybe it's that just when I think all is lost, I will emerge as something new. Maybe it's that I should trust the process a little more. B knew that we had done all we could do for Artie. She didn't keep a ticking clock in her head like I did. She just waited for her butterfly to come out. And he did. I couldn't be more relieved - that Artie made it and that my daughter's simple faith was rewarded.

MILKWEED

:food for monarch caterpillars

The caterpillar that B found only ate one type of leaf: milkweed. How B sensed this, I will never know. But when she brought him home from a yard down the street, she brought a few leaves of milkweed. She placed these leaves in a jar. When he finished them, I suggested a few leaves from the trees in our yard because I didn't want her to continue to scavenge leaves from a neighbor. She acquiesced, but said, "I think he might only eat the leaves he was on when I found him." We quickly found out she was right. Artie wouldn't touch maple or oak leaves. So B went down the street for more milkweed and Artie chowed down - eating two or three leaves daily, which is a lot considering he was smaller than my pinkie.

What I found most interesting about the monarch caterpillar's predilection for milkweed is that the leaf is poisonous to other creatures. Artie knew what he could and couldn't eat. He knew exactly what he needed to consume to turn into a monarch butterfly instead of a monarch caterpillar. It didn't matter to him that it was a weed. He didn't decide he needed a more gourmet diet of arugula, spinach or wilted greens. He knew what he needed to do and did it.

So I've been thinking about what I need that might be poisonous (OK, maybe just distasteful) to others and whether I am swayed by what others need instead of listening to my own mind, my own body, my own soul.

One thing that I need more than many people is solitude. I have done a terrible job of protecting my time and therefore protecting my energy. When I spend a lot of time around other people, I am drained, depleted and exhausted. I know this about myself. But I feel pressure to volunteer at school, at church, at Rejoice. For things both important and unimportant to me. I am a little better at saying NO than I used to be, but my guilt over saying no has increased this year because, for the first time in three years, I am again unemployed. While I am enjoying not working for pay, I feel a self-imposed pressure to exhibit productivity. It was easier to say no to helping during a school science project when I had to work (even at my low-paying, part-time, non-profit job). It's harder to say, "I can't. I need to stay home that day." Or, simply, "I can't."

What else do I need that might not suit other creatures? I need books. Reading revives me, rejuvenates me, feeds me. And if you're spending three hours each day volunteering, there's not much time left to read after dinner, laundry and cleaning.

I also need order, not chaos. This has been hard to come by as we've had a contractor in and out, on an irregular schedule, repairing ceilings, hanging drywall, fixing doorknobs. I want my house straight, if not spotlessly clean. And I want it empty of anyone but me. As I write this, two men are downstairs hanging drywall on my living room ceiling. It needs to be done. I'll be glad when it's done. But I really want the quiet of my own home right now and I'm still several days away from having that.

Finally, I need to write. I almost closed this post without mentioning this need. It is hard to write when I'm over-stimulated, under-read and surrounded by chaos. So I have been leaving this need mostly untended, in spite of the progress that I made last week on two articles. In spite of the fact that I need to share these two articles tomorrow. I tell myself that this need is my least important need, but maybe that's just not true. Maybe I could cope better with these other things if I would write.

I guess the unanswered question in all of this is whether filling these needs will turn me from a caterpillar into a butterfly... or even get me started down that road.

CHRYSALIS

1 a : a pupa of a butterfly; broadly : an insect pupa b : the enclosing case or covering of a pupa
2 : a protecting covering : a sheltered state or stage of being or growth

Last Wednesday, B and a friend found a caterpillar. This caterpillar was different from the ones normally populating our yard in the spring. This one, B claimed, would turn into an actual butterfly. The girl has good instincts. Turns out she was right. She fed the caterpillar leaves from the plant she found him on and discovered that these were the only kind he would eat. She gave him a name (Artie), took him to school, looked him up online, carried him with her on a sleepover and cleaned his jar regularly. And Artie has rewarded her efforts by attaching his chrysalis to the lid of the jar so that we can watch him emerge as butterfly.

B's 2nd grade teacher from last year kindly shared her butterfly tent, which is hanging from the ceiling in our sun room so that Artie doesn't get jostled loose from his connection to the lid. I've already learned a lot from this guy and B's care of him (more to follow on that), but today I've been thinking about his time in the chrysalis.

I'd love to wind a net around myself and curl up for ten days. I would love the silence, the lack of motion, the lack of stimuli. I'd especially love to emerge as a new me at the end of those ten days...

I have been guilty of over-scheduling myself recently. Just this morning, I backed out of chaperoning a field trip for B on Thursday because without that day free, I would have two straight weeks of some commitment every day. That's just too much for me. I feel like an over-stimulated infant. Like the caterpillar, who ate everything in sight before going into his chrysalis, I have been allowing far too many inputs to worm their way into my brain. So I need to follow up my gorging on interaction with a bit of time alone.

And what would I do if I could find a chrysalis? I would bring along a good book, a well-weighted pen and a journal. I would read and write. Then write and read. Those are, after all, the only ways I know to encourage a new me.