Metamorphosis

When I was a kid, I loved caterpillars nearly as much as I loved puppies. I think I liked them that much until I got a puppy. Their fuzzy coat was a tiny but furry replacement for the dog I wished I had. I would often put one it in my room next to a snail or a ladybug or a team of ants. I never had one for very long. I would take my pals outside for a bit of fresh air and invariably wander away to look at something else. Always, I'd come rushing back and find that they had wandered off, leaving me to look for new friends.

My mom used to read us Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She would finish the story with a flourish--"A beautiful butterfly!" she'd say, with reverent emphasis. "Look at all those vibrant colors!" And then she'd wax poetic about how Eric Carle was a spiritual being who was able to explain rebirth to children through such a simple story. But mom, I'd say, I like caterpillars.

Today we were playing in the backyard and a white butterfly flitted past us on trace paper wings.

I thought, If I could spin a chrysalis and hide fast to a tree, I'd so do it. If given the choice between two superpowers--being invisible or being able to fly--I'd be hard pressed. But wings win. Mine would be turbo charged.

The first thing I'd do, without a doubt, would be to fly to a foreign country and have lunch. Then I'd find a tree house or a castle somewhere and settle in for a long day with a desperately good book. When I returned home I would possess an entirely different perspective on life.

The caterpillar is just trying to get there, the butterfly gets to go.

I love the idea that things are different when you escape to a different place, that you are different--and I honestly believe it to be so. Place changes us. I like it when citified people exchange their civilized lives for dirt-stained feet, and vice versa. I like struggle with redemption. But struggling is hard. There's a lot of action in there. And it can start to be a lot about strategy, not dreaming. I like to dream.

I like metamorphosis. I like escape. I like imagining you can shed your skin.

I like good endings.

But I also really believe in the transformative force of hard work, and of taking time to hide away and depend on your own resources, to dig deep and then return to life with a new perspective, even a new self.

I dated this guy in college for about six months and when I met his grandparents I explained that I was going to be studying in Italy the next semester, and staying on to travel write through an independent study I'd set up with a few professors. His grandpa asked me why I wanted to travel--and why for so long? I paused, thinking Well now, that is an odd question, but I tried to remember that he was of a generation before our world of global communication; perhaps he thought all this back and forth across continents was a bit flabbergasting. I told him I thought it was important to spend time in other places in order to better understand our world, and ourselves. He chuckled and said he thought we could find everything we needed in our own backyard, that we shouldn't need to go anywhere to know ourselves.

Fundamentally, I think he's right. We should be able to know ourselves well enough to stay put and still be okay with what we find there. It is beautiful to be able to sustain ourselves through conversations with our neighbors and a strong sense of community, by planting gardens and sharing our food, by being satisfied with long walks in the woods instead of getting on a plane or in a car and spending the trip alive with the thrill zinging through our blood that tells us our best is yet to come.

It's easy to romanticize travel, to imagine it will be all about incredible European vistas, Amazon jungles, the highs of constant wonderment. But traveling was hard, actually. It was lovely and amazing--Italy, Ireland, England, France, Spain. But it was often also incredibly lonely. There was a lot of time to dip inside. I learned more about myself in seven months than I did when I was at home worried about what people thought of me. Instead, I just thought, and I thought a lot about where I wanted to be.

I think we all have our own versions of hope and turmoil and desire for metamorphosis which beg us to move forward, even if it's simply to find a new path home.

The world is getting much smaller these days. It doesn't seem quite like the untapped treasure chest I used to imagine. I never thought I would feel so much contentment in watching our daughter play in her sandbox and splash in her little wading pool under the bower of our apple tree. I like that she is making friends with children she might be able to grow up with, not ones that she'll lose when she moves, like I did when I wandered about and left behind my little insect friends.

I am in caterpillar mode.

But still. We saw a little white butterfly flitting through the air today and I thought, Oh yes. I know I would make good use of those wings. And I like to think if I was to land on my own window pane, I'd look inside longingly.