I do not love butterflies. Don’t take this the wrong way. Butterflies bring happiness to everyone who discovers one. Their wings are so colorful, so delicate, light exposes nature’s version of stained glass. Everyone agrees they are the loveliest insects around. It’s just that butterflies and I have a tortured relationship. Their aloofness, which only adds to their mystique, encourages otherwise sane people to buy cameras with instantaneous shutter speeds and expensive zoom lenses. Not necessarily a bad thing in this economy. These nectar-seeking insects are sought after, studied, and collected, always the center of attention, yet humble enough to fly away at the slightest praise.
Butterflies are the epitome of grace, beauty, and humility. And it’s because of their perfection, the mirror they hold to my own life, that I don’t like them. Actually, it’s worse than that. I envy them. You see, I’m desperate to be a butterfly. But I am, in fact, a bee. Now, I’m not maligning bees. After all, bees are one of the most diligent, hardworking, and useful bugs in the Insecta Class. They’re also under-appreciated. Still, despite their good qualities, they are ugly and they sting. And in my self-defeating quest for perfection, I’m a bee who constantly compares herself to a butterfly.
“That’s ridiculous!” said my 11-year old son one day while on one of our camera-laden hikes (a Friday after-school tradition). “Bees are awesome. How can you not love something born with its own weapon?”
While he had a point, I responded, “Butterflies are beautiful and graceful, bees just lumber around. And they’re noisy.”
He shrugged. “I think you’re pretty.”
I took the compliment, even though I was thinking more about my life in general than my physical appearance.
So I continued, “You have to admit that while people chase butterflies, they scream and run away from bees.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” he said. “Did you know Roman armies catapulted bee hives into enemy camps?” He grinned and took another photograph. “When the hives were smashed, the bees went crazy and killed everyone.”
(I doubted that until I looked it up on the Internet later that evening only to find out he was mostly right.)
“Still,” I insisted. “Butterflies go through a metamorphosis in a chrysalis, which comes from the Greek work crysos meaning golden, while bees are just another version of wasp.”
“Mom,” he said with a long suffering sigh. “”All that is gold does not glitter”.”
I’d forgotten. My son is a huge Tolkein fan. And since I didn’t want to get into a quotation war, which I’d surely lose, I sent him with my phone up the hill ahead of me. While I followed behind, I realized that my issue lay not in the difference between bees and butterflies, but in the darkness of comparison.
Thomas Aquinas described envy as “sorrow for another’s good”, while Dante defined it as “a desire to deprive other men of theirs.” One of the seven deadly sins, envy caused me to make endless comparisons, yearning to become like the thing envied, yet resentful when the becoming failed, and finally hoping for another’s pain. In Dante’s Purgatory, the envious have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they found pleasure in other’s bad luck.
As these thoughts ran through my mind, heat rising at memories of things I’ve said and thought in the past, I stumbled and sat on a bench overlooking the lily pond. Envy is an ugly emotion with even uglier consequences. But it’s real, debilitating, and humiliating to admit to. Once upon a time, I allowed envy to tunnel through me, without my noticing, until my foundations were threatened. Afterwards, I made a vow to keep track of my thoughts and emotions and to avoid certain situations which could send me into a downward spiral. And butterflies remind me of that dark time. Of what I lacked.
A few minutes later my son came running back, more photos saved into digital bits. “I got proof,” he said, waving the camera. “Bees are equal to butterflies.”
I waited for him to sit down next to me, and he dropped the camera into my lap. My shoulders relaxed and I smiled at what I saw, at the simple wisdom of children that never fails to astonish. At the realization that maybe the child guides the parent.
“Bees and butterflies both hang around pretty flowers. But look at this,” he said pointing to the phone’s screen. “They also both have wings. And they both fly!”
