Liftoff

It is afternoon now. I have let the butterfly rest and drop its orange liquid waste on my kitchen table for four hours. I want it to be outside when it takes its first flight, which I sense is coming very soon. I wish no indignity for this one, such as the one who hatched before had suffered. That one dropped out of its chrysalis and stretched its wings quietly in the kitchen, I working in another room, unaware...and when I came in for lunch it set sail and clambered against a window, struggling toward freedom. I had to carry it, flailing and doubtless shouting in a voice too high to hear, to the clear September air outside.

For this one, this special butterfly at whose side I've held such a long vigil, I creep softly, holding the creature aloft on its twig, hoping that it won't lift off before we get outside.
It snaps its new wings open and shut, a butterfly's signal of arrival and power, and clambers higher on its twig.
Wait... don't go yet.
I'm not ready for you to leave.

Swinging around wildly, I click and click, capturing a few frames, amazingly enough. Have you ever tried to photograph a flying butterfly
When you are crying
When your breath is taken from your lungs

When you are engulfed in grace?

Becoming a Butterfly

Having spent a gray Sunday sitting by the fire composing 14 blog posts to nourish and entertain you while I pack and travel to Guyana this coming Saturday (eek!), I have to say it's tough to balance real-time events (like Liam's birthday, like my October trips to Boston, Hartford and Chicago--poof, gone with the wind!) with measured and carefully composed posts like these. For instance, I just found a treasure trove of photos from the Washington County Fair back in September that I must share with you soon; they are too wonderful to let languish in the files. The same goes for a bunch of Halloween pictures that make me quack out loud.

There's just too darn much going on around here to blog like a grasshoppa. If you want real-time twittery stuff, you're in the wrong place, mah friends.

Anyway, you get what you pay for, and you eat what I'm servin', right? (Slams plate down on table).

Thanks for all the birthday wishes for Liam! He read them before leaving for school this morning and almost bounced onto the bus, riding it as a nine-year-old for the first time. He had said he wasn't so sure he liked being nine, but I promised him I would still treat him like my little Shoomie when he was 9 or 25, and that seemed to help.

We're back to enjoying the ecdysis of the Artist Formerly Known as Combo. When last we left him, he was looking miiiighty transparent, and I was yakking on the phone with my mother, helping pass the time in my five-hour vigil, when I noticed a bulge at the chrysalis' bottom.

With a hurried explanation, I hung up on Mom, who understood. I'd always missed the ecdysis before; it had happened too fast for me to see or record. But Combo took his time, and how sweet it was to see him slowly emerge.



Unnnhhh...must...get...antennae...free...
When does the chrysalis end and the butterfly begin? Here?Here, when the great swollen abdomen flops out of its case?

Here, when the proboscis pulls free and begins to coil?
Here, when the wings suddenly begin to expand?

The new butterfly swivels on its legs, swings in the breeze, its abdomen unwieldy, heavy with fluids meant for the crumpled wings. To fall now might mean the butterfly's death. Hang on, Combo.
Contained so tightly for so long, the wings expand like sponges soaking up water.
Its abdomen expands and contracts as it pumps blood and fluids through the long black veins of its new wings.
The wings unrumple and grow before my eyes; every blink brings a change.
The chrysalis, once opaque and green, is no more than a discarded cellophane wrapper.
The butterfly scrabbles for a hold on the twig, its strong hooked feet clinging surely as the wind buffets it. To fall now would be to die, injuring its wings and rendering them useless for flight. The expanding wings must be held clear of all obstructions until they are bright and hard. It swivels until it gets all four legs (the front two are reduced to pedipalps) on something. It's taking no chances.
Every gust bends its wings to and fro. Still it pumps fluids, and still they grow larger. The wings are almost full size now, but a half hour from emergence, they are still wet and soft, unable to bear weight, to open or close.
Finally, they are fully expanded. Still, they are so wet that a breath of air bends them, and I see the brilliant cinnabar upper surface. This is a rare shot, for they will never again be this flexible. All of this has happened in the span of perhaps thirty minutes. Quick, as miracles go.I am nervous enough about this newly minted creature now to bring it back inside, to the kitchen table, so its wings may dry and it may rest, untroubled by wind or predators, for the next four hours.

Tomorrow, we fly!

A Morning in Thrall

The dark chrysalis seemed to become more transparent by the minute. In the dull kitchen light of pre-dawn, I could see that the butterfly's legs had pulled away from the chrysalis side, leaving a whitish translucence behind.As the light from the dawn grew, I realized that I needed to take the chrysalis outside to have enough light to capture its details.That's better. Sunlight gave me a whole new perspective, enhancing the transparency of the chrysalis.It seemed it would burst open at any moment.How much more transparent could it get? More, apparently...The waiting was driving me crazy. The sequence above was taken from 6:30 AM to about 10:45 AM. I had taken a small break to take Phoebe to her bus at 6:15, and, not daring to leave the chrysalis, I'd taken it out with me to deliver Liam to his bus at 8:04. Back home, I was sitting on the deck with my laptop, writing a journal of the metamorphosis, in between glancing up at the creature on the deck railing every 30 seconds or so, looking for the slightest change.

A different, somewhat foreboding look at the miracle to be. It's a pod, alien yet familiar.
Finally, I called my mother, to while away the time and see how she was faring this fine autumnal morning. That did the trick. This is the last picture of Combo as a chrysalis.I looked away, looked again, and Combo was splitting open.

I do apologize for not giving this to you in one big heaping bowlful. There are so many photographs in the sequence--dozens upon dozens-- that it would be a shame, a waste, a drag to put them all in one elephantine post. Besides, I want to give you some feeling for the kind of ---I detest this word, but I'm using it for fun---

stick-to-it-iveness

that it takes to follow an organism from egg to butterfly. Please don't ever quote me on this, OK? I fancy that I am not the kind of person who uses a word like

stick-to-it-iveness.

Then again, I never thought I would use emoticons in an email, or buy shirts for a dog. 

More on Combo on Monday.