San Diego has butterflies. Lots and lots of butterflies. More than I've ever seen in my whole life. They just began appearing a few days ago. According to the news reports, they are called painted ladies, and look like small versions of monarchs, but with different patterning on their wings, and they have come forth because of the rains, which have brought a super-bloom of wildflowers, creating places to lay eggs and food for the emerging caterpillars, which spin themselves into cocoons and metamorphose into butterflies.
Painted Ladies live for about 2 weeks, during which time they lay their eggs. When they fly out into the world, they are brand new. They are babies. And they are exuberant. They fly all over the place, and fast! They can fly up to 20 miles per hour.
They're on their way from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. But they do not fly in straight lines.
They flit. They zoom. They spin. They swarm. Clouds of flitting, spinning, zooming butterflies.
I first noticed them the other day standing outside with a friend in his yard. We observed them affectionately, and I felt very tender towards them. Then I got in my car and drove off. That's when it became clear that I was killing many of them, and so was everyone else who was driving along the Coast Highway. As fast as the painted ladies could fly, they couldn't avoid all the cars, and no matter how tenderly I felt for them, I couldn't avoid killing them unless I quit driving all together until the swarms pass in a few weeks.
We're born with more synapses than we need--it's called synaptic exuberancy--and I hoped that the exuberant forces of nature were working in favor of the butterflies, and that there would still be plenty of butterflies who fulfilled their purposes.
Yet, I felt so heavy and crude in my metal car on the asphalt road, following it to my destination in a steady predictable way, with this profuse and abundant wild, light, effusive, ephemeral life flying all around me, so erratic it felt ecstatic. The bright blue sky filled with light, the ocean shimmering with light all around, butterflies everywhere the eye could see, and here I was sitting in my metal bubble killing butterflies when all I wanted was to watch them and marvel.
But in a few seconds, I realized that they were also a danger to me. I've driven in fog, rain, wind, hail, and snow, but I've never driven through clouds of butterflies.
This is the way worlds collide. This is the way we hurt one another, even when we didn't mean to. In different vehicles, on different paths, going different directions in different ways, at different speeds, some with protective bubbles, some as vulnerable as a newly born butterfly. Sometimes I've been the butterfly. Sometimes the heavy metal machine that mowed it down. Sometimes the swarm so thick and mesmerizing it blinds oncoming traffic. Sometimes the driver trying to peer through the swarm and keep eyes on the road. That's the way it goes. It's not personal.
The painted ladies are here, the rains have come, the wildflowers are blooming, and we are all here together flitting about. May we all become lighter and brighter for it.
Painted Ladies live for about 2 weeks, during which time they lay their eggs. When they fly out into the world, they are brand new. They are babies. And they are exuberant. They fly all over the place, and fast! They can fly up to 20 miles per hour.
They're on their way from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. But they do not fly in straight lines.
They flit. They zoom. They spin. They swarm. Clouds of flitting, spinning, zooming butterflies.
I first noticed them the other day standing outside with a friend in his yard. We observed them affectionately, and I felt very tender towards them. Then I got in my car and drove off. That's when it became clear that I was killing many of them, and so was everyone else who was driving along the Coast Highway. As fast as the painted ladies could fly, they couldn't avoid all the cars, and no matter how tenderly I felt for them, I couldn't avoid killing them unless I quit driving all together until the swarms pass in a few weeks.
We're born with more synapses than we need--it's called synaptic exuberancy--and I hoped that the exuberant forces of nature were working in favor of the butterflies, and that there would still be plenty of butterflies who fulfilled their purposes.
Yet, I felt so heavy and crude in my metal car on the asphalt road, following it to my destination in a steady predictable way, with this profuse and abundant wild, light, effusive, ephemeral life flying all around me, so erratic it felt ecstatic. The bright blue sky filled with light, the ocean shimmering with light all around, butterflies everywhere the eye could see, and here I was sitting in my metal bubble killing butterflies when all I wanted was to watch them and marvel.
But in a few seconds, I realized that they were also a danger to me. I've driven in fog, rain, wind, hail, and snow, but I've never driven through clouds of butterflies.
This is the way worlds collide. This is the way we hurt one another, even when we didn't mean to. In different vehicles, on different paths, going different directions in different ways, at different speeds, some with protective bubbles, some as vulnerable as a newly born butterfly. Sometimes I've been the butterfly. Sometimes the heavy metal machine that mowed it down. Sometimes the swarm so thick and mesmerizing it blinds oncoming traffic. Sometimes the driver trying to peer through the swarm and keep eyes on the road. That's the way it goes. It's not personal.
The painted ladies are here, the rains have come, the wildflowers are blooming, and we are all here together flitting about. May we all become lighter and brighter for it.
