Like A Disappointed Butterfly

I was sitting outside last week, and it was one of those still days where you could imagine you were the only person on earth. There was no one else home, no neighbors outside, and no lawn mowers or car engines were humming in the distance. All I could hear was the soothing sound of birdsong and happily buzzing insects.

The sun had come out immediately after I came outside, and although it had only been cool for two days, I was already missing the summer warmth. I climbed into a lawn chair, my hair spread out like solar panels. I just sat soaking in the Vitamin D and scenery.

I was delighted to discover a cute little butterfly bobbing among the purple cosmos right by my arm. (Can I just pause to say how much I love that there are flowers called “cosmos”? Anne Shirley would approve of such a romantic name.)

The butterfly was smaller than an average one, its body rounder and fuzzier, kind of like the difference between a fluffy seal pup and a full grown seal. Its wings were deep orange, its big eyes black. I leaned over, told it it was cute (because I talk to bugs), and watched as it flitted from flower to flower.

It drifted toward a cosmo that had grown tipped over sideways—and landed on the wrong spot. The butterfly bumped into the base of the stem on the underside of the flower. It immediately flew away as if disgruntled to find no pollen, and I burst out laughing. Not realizing its silly mistake, the butterfly then flew back to a flower it had been to earlier—one it knew had pollen inside.

And I suddenly related to that butterfly.

Now I’m not sure how much of a thought process goes on in a butterfly. (I said I talked to bugs, I didn’t say they told me anything back.) But I imagine at the very least it recognized something along the lines of “There is no pollen in this flower.” If butterflies are able to pass judgment, this butterfly would probably have come to the conclusion that the flower was even “bad.” So it immediately went back to what it knew.

See where I’m going with this?

I wonder how many snap assumptions we make simply because we come at something from the wrong angle and then don’t stick around long enough to realize our mistake. Sometimes we think a glance tells us all we need to know about a circumstance, or even a person.

Amazing what a change of perspective can do, isn’t it? It might even mean the difference between moving forward or finding ourselves back where we started.

Just some thoughts on how to avoid being a disappointed butterfly.

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