Marnie

I have been reading a number of blogs, which feature marvelous insect photos and lots of interesting posts on such things as tagging monarch butterflies. Today Burning Silo had a photo of a "surprise" indoor monarch, which reminded me of an incident that I had forgotten.


You see once upon a time we shared our home with a butterfly too. It happened one fall when Alan was quite small. An early frost had struck overnight ending the growing season with a decisive bang.


We were driving up the hill to the house, which was not our home yet, when Alan called out, "Look mom, it's a butterfly." And sure enough, among the bushes that straggle willy-nilly beside the drive was an empty chrysalis with a butterfly clinging below it.



We crawled out of the car and rushed over to look. He was young enough then that such a sight was a new and truly exciting event. (Eh, I admit it...we would still be just as quick to stop today and he is a senior in High School now.) As we got closer we could see that things weren't good for this poor insect though. "Her" wings had only half opened and had hardened into a crumpled, curled-over black and orange mess. I suppose the frost may have been the culprit. We left her there and went about our business, but at night she still hung there, wrinkled and weary. We decided that since more bad weather was forecast and since Alan was a little boy who hated to see anything suffer we would take her home.



At that time we lived about a mile from here in a house in the village, as the boss's folks lived here. There didn't seem to be any serviceable jars for monarch housing, and with those wings we didn't figure she would be going anywhere, so we released the critter, christened Marnie by her benefactor, in our tiny bathroom.


Since the kids had studied butterflies in school Alan knew enough to make sugar water, which he offered her in a soda bottle cap. She promptly obliged by sitting on his finger sipping neatly through her cunningly unrolled "butterfly straw".


Thus began about ten days of feeding her interesting sweet things, checking your toothbrush for butterflies, and finding her sitting on your shoulder when you went in to wash your hands. We brought bunches of late flowers in for her and she knew just what to do with them. She had to work hard to fly well enough to join you as you prepared to shower, but fly she did. Alan took her for "walks" outside, perched on his outstretched finger. She stayed with him, seeming content. Someone was always hollering, "Don't let the butterfly out of the bathroom," every time they heard the door open.


We really enjoyed her; it was fun to have a butterfly in the house. However, there were a number of close calls when she escaped from her little prison and found her way to kitchen or closet. It was not easy to find her again and I was afraid that one of these incidents would lead to disaster or that she would be injured when someone picked up a towel or something (she often chose to perch on towels).


Therefore, one brilliant sunny afternoon when over 30 wild monarchs (with properly flat and handsome wings) were sipping at the mums in the side yard, I took Marnie for a walk. I wasn't sure what would happen, but I needed the story to have a happy ending for her very young benefactor. I wasn't planning on bringing her back to the house.


Amazingly, as soon as she felt the sun beating down over the bank of glowing flowers, she lifted off my finger and spiraled off over the lilac bushes. She circled higher and higher until she was out of sight, flapping diligently off toward the river.


She was an insect, (not necessarily even a "she" although anthropomorphically we called her one.) I don't imagine we even existed for her and that her landings on our persons were incidental rather than planned. I rather doubt that she made it to Mexico or lived to reproduce. Those wings probably didn't carry her very far on that late fall afternoon of freedom.



However, we have comfortable and fond memories of sharing the bathroom with a butterfly and an everlasting soft spot for Monarchs just the same.