Fluttering.

Looking at my stats this morning, it appears that everything is going back to normal and the most popular posts remain my Facts about Ocean Phospheresence and the Recipe for Black/Salal Berry Jam – both of which continue to get comments even years after being posted. There’s something about that which really tickles me – the sexiness of posts about nature and wild food foraging 🙂

Yesterday I was on the way back from the dentist – on the skytrain from Commercial to Burrard – and somewhere around Stadium Station, a butterfly flew onto the train. At least I assume it was at Stadium, but I didn’t notice the butterfly until we were underground, just before Granville. It caught everyone’s attention then, because of the incogruity of it I suppose – this delicate outdoor creature flapping around inside a rushing steel tube buried beneath twenty feet of pavement. And of course, we all knew that it was going to die, which gives rise to all sorts of lovely musings about ephermality of life, etc. I could write a poem about that butterfly, so perfect was the visual subject, but really it’s probably best I don’t.

In any case, I was watching this guy watching the butterfly and he was also in some mesmerized place by it, and just as I was thinking “someone should try to free that butterfly”, he got up and tried to catch it. This was just after we left Granville Station – but the butterfly wasn’t having any of his interference. Just as we pulled into Burrard, I decided to have a go of it as well, but again – why would that insect trust me? Better to bang itself against the dark windows of the train than follow doom into the hands of a monster. Right before the train pulled away from Burrard, I realized I was going to miss my stop and hopped off, where the guy was watching me.

So we had a laugh together, and I told him I thought the butterfly was a goner, to which he said – but you never know what’s going to happen, it could fly off at the next stop (which is true, because at Waterfront the stop is above ground) – and as we got to the top of the station escalator I said have a good day and he responded as though – yes, in fact, he was going to have a *great* day. Which I’m sure he wasn’t before, but something about trying to save that butterfly and then talking about its fate with a total stranger made the whole being downtown prospect seem much better. At least I felt that way. And I felt the amazing possibility of connection, and that made me feel stronger than I had in days.

It was the randomness, of course. Because I live so much in the reality that randomly bad things can just happen, I forget that also randomly good things can happen. And they aren’t giant good things usually, they are small ones – like sharing a joke at a check-out counter, or having a little flirt at the farmer’s market, or just helping someone at the right moment so you know it matters. It’s so easy to ignore those little moments and focus on the bigger, badder ones – particularly as the ego is conditioned to complaint – but not only do they happen, we can create opportunities for them more often by simply staying open. That’s the hard part for me, because mostly in the city I close myself down for the sake of protection, and some days it’s all I can do to make eye contact at the deli counter. The butterfly gave me an excuse to come out of myself yesterday, as it did the guy sitting across from me, and who knows what ripples that will have?