I spent many hours as a child chasing butterflies. I’m afraid many of them ended up chloroformed and pinned into a butterfly collection in the “museum” my brother and I created in the garage. I was obsessed by it all: the identification books, mounting blocks, pinning, dreams of capturing rare species. I think part of the attraction was the illusion I could contain the world in a manageable space.
- White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis) is a fairly common resident in Vermont in the summer, seen here sunning on the leaf of a Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum). The plant and insect are part of a wonderfully complex world impossible to represent in a single photograph or blog posting!
By early spring the garage had invariably flooded, turning the museum floor into a small ice rink. And the Black Carpet Beetles (Attagenus megatoma) would have eaten the bodies of the not-so-carefully mounted collection. I would open drawer after drawer of the old card catalog file, in which we stored our prizes on beds of cotton batting, only to find piles of brown dust and sets of detached wings. Discouraged, but undaunted and propelled by another childhood spring, I’d soon be off chasing new adventures and more butterflies in a world that seemed to have no bounds.
It was, in retrospect, all quite sweetly sad, no doubt a common part of what many experience as our world becomes more defined. In the process I at least gained some innate appreciation for that world in which I saw butterflies.
I remember a Common Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) where I knew, though without “knowing,” I could find Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) in the late spring. I chased many a Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) across a fallow corn field—again I’m not sure I knew that fact at the time—stumbling over the weed-strewn furrows where corn had grown probably only a few years before.
Many of the days of my childhood were defined by a green world. I still find great pleasure and comfort there.
I clearly remember the delight of simply lying on the ground after a long chase, successful or not, watching layer after layer of insects fly across the blue sky. I was dumfounded by the seeing this hidden world overflowing with life. That sky and the green weeds in the periphery of my seeing defined the edges of a pleasant and enchanting world that remains with me today.
Still Learning To See 