What Do You Do on the Day Butterflies Cannot Fly
prickly pear with pink blooms
brittlebush as desert botanical gardens
pink fairy duster
white peacock
painted lady butterfly
zebra longwing
Monarch with wings folded
What do butterflies do in the rain? And what does that have to do with chronic pain? And don't we all have days we'd rather fold up than show up?
Writing about that today in the desert:
The day is a good day. No desert heat in the forecast. Overcast. Possible rain. A pleasant drizzle of a day.
"I thought of canceling," she says. "but I wanted to see the butterflies."
I adjust my gait to match her slower one, her cane thumping the moist soil of the garden path.
We meander the long way around the wildflower garden in order to see the desert in spring abandon. Pink blooms on prickly pear as delicate as roses. An explosion of yellow brittlebush. The dainty spray of the fairy duster--not the red Baja, but the pink fairy duster--a name that makes me wonder if the namer was overwhelmed with the abundance of color and was blinded to originality.
"I want to take a picture," she says. "Can you hold my backpack?"
I grab the bag holding important water, food, and medications in case she becomes overheated. Or the pain becomes too great. Or she becomes dizzy. Or a host of other symptoms I have witnessed but cannot comprehend.
I have never lived with daily, chronic pain.
I have never awoken to ascertain my body to decide if today I will need a cane. Or a walker. Or a wheelchair. Or if it is best to fold up and stay in bed until the pain is bearable.
I have never had to make these decisions when I was twenty-eight years old. At 56, double her age, I have never had to make those decisions, either.
But today is a good day.
A day to see butterflies.
We wait in line with other amateur lepidopterists--observers of beauty in flight.
"The butterflies aren't very active today," the line monitor cautions, a woman wearing the official volunteer khaki of one who knows.
We didn't take the temperature into account when we loaded up the car that morning and headed to the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens. Not wanting to swelter under the desert sun, the overcast day was perfect, in our opinion. The cold-blooded bodies of the butterflies are not in agreement. Needing temps of at least 60 degrees (but preferring 82-100) in order to take flight, the butterflies are not finding the necessary warmth in the morning chill.
Rain is also in the forecast-- a potential catastrophe for the butterflies. According to Scientific America, a butterfly, weighing in at 150 mg, would find a 70 mg raindrop "equivalent to a person being pelted by water balloons with twice the mass of bowling balls."
Not exactly conditions to put on dancing shoes and go singing in the rain.
Bowling ball weights of reality can ground anything. Or anyone.
Most of the grounded fliers are basking. We take a photo of a white peacock. A painted lady. A zebra longwing. Butterfly after butterfly open their wings wide to the warming, exposing as much of their bodies as possible to the morning light.
But then we discover a monarch. And another. And another. Wings folded. Closed in on themselves. As if frozen with inability to face the morning.
"Maybe if we wait a bit on the bench."
We wait. To no avail.
I can't help but be disappointed. I know how difficult it is for her to come.
Why won't the butterflies perform for me? For her? For us?
But sometimes butterflies can't fly and sometimes pain doesn't line up with plans and even if you wait...
Even if you wait....
Today she got out of bed.
Today the butterflies cannot fly.