What's On the Inside . . . Part 2

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but, which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The picture in yesterday's post is the butterfly that appears on my arm in this photograph. Amazing. I had spent an hour or so photographing butterflies and sat down to watch my niece, Olivia, delighted with a butterfly on her arm. As I sat quietly observing the manic crowds of unsupervised children in the conservatory, the unthinkable happened: this large butterfly landed on me without warning and promptly opened up at full wingspan. It was enormous and elegant at the same time! Those beautiful azure-blue wings were hidden inside the mottled brown spots of the exterior. What dazzled me was that deep, brilliant color, as royal as Princess Diana's sapphire ring and as rare as lapis lazuli on the fingers of Cleopatra.

I was adorned with the elusive, the exquisite, the ethereal.

My mom took the camera from me and began to snap pictures as the noisy groups of children, nosey mothers and grandparents, and inquisitive Krohn Conservatory butterfly watchers surrounded me like paparazzi. I don't like attention; futhermore I was incredibly unhappy that total strangers started snapping photos of me with this magnificent butterfly on my flabby, fleshy appendage.

The thought of ending up in someone else's family scrapbook or digital photo album made me nauseous.

My new friend tickled me with the unfurling and recoiling of its proboscis. It gently fluttered, content to rest on me in the humid heat of the conservatory. . . both of us were equally happy and equally agitated by the growing gallery. Twenty or so minutes into this circus, a small boy began to blow gently against the wings of the butterfly in an attempt to get it to move. Despite my fervent "requests" for the little boy to leave me alone, he kept up his cruel, wicked childish game.

The butterfly grew tired of it and flew away to the tree next to us and instantly closed its wings, becoming almost one with the bark.

We are all so much like this butterfly. On the outside we attempt to blend with our surroundings, constantly flitting and fluttering from one place to the next. It is not until we find someone with whom we feel comfortable -- free -- that we open our wings and expose the beauty inside.

For me, that person is my husband, Jay, who every day encourages me to spread my wings and fly freely.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarelyadmit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. ~ Maya Angelou