Caterpillar Soup

Here’s the current status: swollen knee, strained meniscus, gash in my heel, mildly sprained wrist, pinky slice from a Japanese chef’s knife, slightly twisted ankle, out of place ribs, and an okay attitude. 

Not all of these are related to each other, but most of them are. Except the okay attitude. That came on its own at the beginning of the week as an unexpected Monday gift. I am leaning fully into it too because after the sad Saturday (and Sunday) I was feeling, waking up to Monday turned Tuesday turned Wednesday okayness feels like sunshine and lollipops.

As I’ve learned to feel into my emotions, permitting myself to be smack dab in the middle of them when they surface, sad Saturdays aren’t uncommon. I even have a playlist a friend made me called “Sad Saturdaaaayz” and no joke, listened to it all the way through twice on Saturday. It’s that perfect mix of being in your feelings before abruptly reminding you with upbeat bop that you’ll be AOK (thanks Tai Verdes). It might feel like a rollercoaster to some, but to me? It’s just a little bit of real life in a playlist.

I text her, my friend, and told her it was a day for it. For the Sad Saturdaaaayz playlist. She loved the message right away. She also called me later to say hi. She had a great day (thanks for asking) and me? My voice was shaking a little while I held back tears. She already knew. She knows me. So I cried and babbled and felt silly and felt seen and by the end started to feel a bit more even. Everything I was sharing that felt like it was about something else was actually just about me.

The best people to have in your life? The ones that can let you talk about the thing that isn’t really the thing but direct you toward what is actually the thing, even if it takes you a bit longer to see it for yourself. And even when it take me a bit longer to get there, my people know how to be patient, but honest. They know how to listen and tell the truth. The actual whole truth. And in the natural cycles of growth I constantly find myself in, they remind me that it can all be true. It can all exist simultaneously. It does all exist simultaneously. That’s living.

That’s how I keep making it through and it all keeps being worth it. I can’t think of anyone saying that growth is easy and enjoyable. It’s a physical act of breaking down, breaking open, receiving, rooting, and very slowly pushing through the surrounding dirt to find the nurturing, warm sunshine beckoning the resilient tiniest sprout to reach up just a little bit more, day by day by day. 

Reaching for the sunshine. That’s what it’s all about.

I have no clue why it chose me (that’s a likely exaggeration by the way), but there’s this monarch butterfly by my place that started following me around almost every day the last 2 weeks. I saw it while sitting on the beach. I saw it while sitting on my porch working. I even saw it a half mile from my house the day I messed up my knee hastily skateboarding to my piano lesson before I fell. I swear it finds me and greets me and each time I feel so lucky to share that moment with my butterfly friend and grateful it keeps gracing me with its presence. When I see it, I feel settled. If only for a minute.

Did you know that becoming a butterfly is barely like what we’re taught growing up? I always envisioned a colorful very hungry caterpillar eating through apples and oranges and chocolate cake and pickles and ice cream cones before happily spinning a cocoon around itself, very full and satisfied. It basically took a long nap in its tiny home to later emerge as a winged creature of the flowers and sky. 

Wrong.

Recently I listened to this podcast that totally blew up any childhood understanding of cute caterpillars turned butterflies. Funny enough, the podcast wasn’t even about butterflies. It was about tapping into and trusting the genius and creativity that each and every individual holds within themselves.

But they talked about butterflies and this thing called imaginal cells. 

Get this—once a caterpillar is in its chrysalis (cocoon) it digests itself and turns into what some have called caterpillar soup. The only part of this process that survives is a group of cells called imaginal cells (yes, like imagination) and their whole purpose is to understand that in the future the caterpillar will turn into a butterfly and they bring that to life during metamorphosis. Imaginal cells imagine the butterfly into being and it happens. A living, breathing, delicate, colorful winged creature from caterpillar soup. 

Every part of a butterfly’s existence is dependent upon a birth, a death, and a rebirth emerging from an imagination and hope for the butterfly to exist. Every part of the butterfly’s existence is about the process.

Process over product. That’s the season of life I am in, or at the very least attempting to be in. 

I tie my own hands and feet, keeping myself from doing the very things I have a hunch I should be doing. The more I consider creating, trying things, letting me imagine something else for myself, the harder it is do any of it. The rope just gets tighter, even though its of my own doing and I have the power to just as easily untie it. I get so wrapped up in what the butterfly will look like, if it’ll be acceptable to the world, if it will be worth it, if it will survive. 

Of course it won’t survive, at least it won’t survive forever. Nothing does. It also might not be worth it, at least in the ways I want it to be worth it. It definitely won’t be acceptable to everyone, that’s just impossible, and I can’t really know what it will look like before it emerges. That’s not up to me in the first place. 

What is up to me is imagining that the butterfly can exist. What is up to me is trusting that participating in the process is the only thing I am responsible to and trusting that the process is the only thing that actually matters.

I had this experience recently that brought me to face myself (via facing my therapist who redirected me to face myself). I’ve avoided creating. I’ve avoided writing. I’ve avoided attaching to people, places, things because the last time I did it was taken away. I’ve been scared. I’m still scared. I don’t want to go through that kind of pain and grief again, so instead I’ll just not get attached. Obvious problem. Obvious solution. 

But trying to avoid pain and grief is really just me avoiding the fullness of being alive and if I’m being honest? I want to be fully alive, even if it means facing pain and grief. In facing pain and grief, I get to also experience 

the exhilaration of joy, 

the contentment of simple pleasures, 

the thrill of the mundane. 

More than avoidance, I want aliveness and if aliveness comes with the unknown, with rejection, with heartache, in order to receive goodness, so be it. 

That’s the process. 

I mean, you can’t have a butterfly without caterpillar soup.