Unseen Beauty: A Journal

Butterflies

We all chase butterflies at some point in our life. They attract us, their brilliantly colored wings flickering through the clear air in a dance of magnificent grace that we cannot exist. We follow them, leaning close with bated breath in hopes of somehow sharing in their magic. They have no place in human practicality; we need no pollinating nor are most of us particularly fond of the butterfly’s relations, the “bugs.” And yet we follow them, unable to resist the freedom and passing beauty that they represent to us.

Butterflies are strange creatures with their gemstone hued wings, flashing unbelievable color as they pass. They evoke emotion, imagination, wonder, and yet if examined closely, butterflies are not attractive beyond their wings. Their thin bodies and bulging eyes place them in a bracket of creepy-crawlies not exalted by most humans. And yet our minds filter out the insectoid aspects of the little creatures, focusing instead on what they represent to us. We chase them because they are beautiful; they evoke the wonder of childhood, the memory of belief in Truth, Beauty, and all of the other simple wonders that, as adults, we fear to speak out loud.

When I was a young woman, still unafraid to give voice to those mind-boggling intangibles that maturity teaches us to fear, I purchased a book on a vacation visit to Haaslam’s bookstore in St. Petersburg Florida. Honestly, I never finished reading the book; it is still resting on a bookshelf at home gathering dust. Its title, however, drew me: Creative Writing for People Who Can’t Not Write. That, I felt, was me.

As a solitary child, I found my world, my home in books. I spent more time in literary worlds than in the real one, and my goal in life was to create worlds of my own. I couldn’t not write; I constantly had a notebook at my side. When grown-ups asked me my ambition, I proudly told them that I would be a writer when I grew up. When I suffered at the hands of my schoolmates, I wrote out my vengeance; I was a writer. When I chose the college I would attend, I chose it on the basis of its writing program.

But I did not become a writer. Practicality and the iron fist of money and “reality” stepped in. Yet I cannot resist the allure of the written word. I know that words are, in reality, no more than cramped black lines on a pale page. They are nothing special, limited little creatures whose meaning has been carefully chronicled by the followers of Webster. And yet my mind filters out the cold denotative realities, focusing instead on the magic and wonder that words trigger in our minds. I trace their paths, laying them carefully one next to the other in hopes that they will reach beyond the written page into the realm of wonder and touch someone’s soul.

I cannot help it; I chase the butterflies of the written word, never tiring of the beauty and wonder of their flashing beauty, the mystery and magic of their flight from the written page to the soul and spirit. I chase them because they are beautiful, because they speak to something primal within me, because I long to follow them to the place I am sure they will lead me – a place where dreams still can come true.