photograph by anna traverse fogle
A few days before Thanksgiving, a FedEx box arrived on the front porch. I unsealed it gingerly, wanting not to disturb the occupant within. Nestled among ice packs and cardboard was a slim white letter envelope — and inside that was Monica the Monarch.
My uncle Paul and Michele, his wife, had discovered Monica as a caterpillar feasting on a stand of milkweed outside their Adirondack lake house, brought her indoors to mature safely in a container — only for her to escape. They discovered her again a month later, in chrysalis form, but by that time, upstate New York was already too cold for Monica’s migration south to begin — and she had yet to emerge as a butterfly.
Which is where we Southerners came in: Paul texted me to ask an unusual question: If they sent Monica to our house, would we release her outside in Memphis, or raise her in captivity for later release? Well, of course we would! This little butterfly would enjoy a (very) accelerated first half of her trip. Butterflies travel between five and 12 miles per hour. Jets … upwards of five hundred miles per hour.
There’s something to be said for fretting a bit less about circumstances beyond my grasp, and focusing a bit more on what and who needs help right in front of me.
By the time Paul and Michele tucked Monica away for her trip to Memphis, she had emerged from her chrysalis into butterflydom. They had been feeding her dilute honey water and orange water, and she seemed to be thriving, but would she survive the trip? When I gently opened her envelope, my heart sank: Monica wasn’t moving, and one of her wings appeared badly crumpled.
Surely this did not bode well. She began to stir ever so slightly, though, clinging to a small hunk of cardboard, so I moved her into a sunny patch and sat with her. My husband diluted a drop of honey into a tiny saucer of water, and she dipped her proboscis into the liquid. After only a few minutes of sunshine, her little crumpled wing began to relax and smooth. Before long, buoyed by warmth and sweetness, she started to flutter about. I was texting Paul and Michele throughout, so I know it was just one minute later that I wrote, “SHE JUST FLEW AWAY!!!!!!” Up, up, and away, into a tree and gone, her journey just beginning.
A week later, taking Lily Bear the dog outside in the morning, I noticed a truly tiny kitten standing all by its lonesome next to the deck. In full disclosure, we take care of a neighborhood feral cat whom we’ve not yet been able to trap and spay, and we had observed a few weeks earlier she looked possibly pregnant. Here was the blue-eyed proof, an unwanted runt, mewing up from a pile of oak leaves.
Without thinking about what I was doing, I leaned down, scooped her up, and hustled her into the cat carrier we keep outside in hopes of capturing mama-feral. An immediate trip to the vet showed the kitten — first called Tiny Tim, then revealed to be Tiny Tina, and now renamed Tuesday — to be entirely healthy at all of 12 ounces and four weeks old. Now almost seven weeks, she’s doubled in size and will, I keep promising, be on her way to a permanent home any day now. It’s been 13 years since I lived with a baby kitten. Turns out, they’re still cute. Breaking news, I know.
These are small stories about smaller creatures. But (and forgive the Mr. Rogers attitude) they’re also reminders — of grace, of frailty, of the choices that we make each day about how we will interact with our world. I can’t help every feral cat in Midtown, but when a tabby-and-white face stares up at me and says, “mew!”, I can try to give her a warmer, safer beginning. I didn’t do much of anything for the butterfly, just served as a way station, but watching her wing unfurl before she darted up into a sunbeam — there was majesty in that small moment.
There’s something to be said for fretting a bit less about circumstances beyond my grasp, and focusing a bit more on what and who needs help right in front of me. I’ll try to remember that in this new year.