Cocooning

I was tooling towards Como Zoo with all three kids in the backseat when suddenly I realized I was heading south instead of north on 35W. Road construction was terrible. With all the lanes veering this way and that, somehow I ended up in an exit lane going the wrong direction. No big deal, I thought. Just get off at the next exit ramp and turn around.

But with all the detour signs and closed entrance ramps, what should have been a 40-minute trip ended up taking 1 1/2 hours. When I realized how far off course we'd actually gone, I felt like a tiny mouse in an impossible maze. I almost gave up. "Kids, we're so off the mark, I don't even know if I have enough gas to get all the way to St. Paul and back."

They were disappointed. I was mad, and talking to myself: Life is full of detours, Cheri, learn to embrace them. Maybe life IS a detour, and you're so angry about having to abandon your own map and plans that you're missing it! Stick with this. Enjoy the journey. Be an example to your kids.

But I think my higher-self was stuck in the trunk. My steering wheel will attest to the frustration and anger it --and everyone else in the car-- endured. I turned into the Wicked Witch of the West (only difference is I was going south). We made it to the Zoo, fueled only by my spite for the god of detours--the one who makes any human effort to arrive at a mapped destination seem insignificant and small.

And if you doubt there is such a god, can you please explain how we got lost on the way home, too?

It took me 2 days to de-compress. Because the Zoo-fiasco is simply magnifying how I feel about life in general. Two job opportunities that had me flying high with expectation and a new vision for my future crash-landed. My sister's fight with cancer, and watching the toll it is taking on her kids and husband (and also my mom and dad who are live-in help), is terribly sad. And my waitressing job (its scheduling issues, poor tipping from guests, etc) continues to thwart dedicated efforts to make ends meet.

Detour. Detour. Detour. I feel like I walk around with a permanent lump in my throat.

And yet God continues to speak through caterpillar (now in chrysallis) hanging from milkweed in my kitchen window. The road from caterpillar to butterfly includes a detour. We "watchers" expect the chrysallis phase, and even welcome it, because we know it's part of God's design. But does the caterpillar know the bigger picture? Does he think he's dying when he's hanging in that upside down J? Does he know he will emerge, in time, with wings?

Lord, help me to trust that I will get there (wherever "there" is) in your time and way. And help me to live in a state of grace, cherishing EVERY phase of the journey.

(Detour sign from FreePhoto.com)

After all these years, the thrill of watching a caterpillar transform is not lost to me.

The caterpillars are harder to find this year, so the Monarch population must be down. But after days and days of scouring milkweed at a nearby pond, I finally found one. The amazing thing is that 3 days after bringing it home and setting the leafy milkweed in a jar, the caterpillar formed its chrysallis. And yesterday our new butterfly was born!

We share a path
of cattails and milkweed
nests of new goslings
birch trees shedding paper
thin skin

Your sleeves long are rolled
to the wrist, cuffed
like navy-man's cap over brow of
phantom fingers, once strong hand
surrendered, given

to war?
defective birth?
angry machine?

You see me see you, and
delicate as a butterfly's wing
slip that arm behind
your back, protective (Of me? Of you? Should pain be polite?)
the loss an untold story,
a link where we connect

I am marching bolder now, or so it seems,
my own hand thrust before me, bearing
traditional summer torch:
pond treasure, milk-bleeding, with
cocoon-ready caterpillar clinging
to bobbing, leafy stalk

Our paths pass.
"Is that heron back there blue?" you ask
before tripping, embarrassed, on a grass-covered root

I hold my torch higher
so we can bear witness, both
to Monarch's promise

I know you fellow pond-walker
wound-wearing friend of
light-winged dragons
able-legged frogs
and willows weeping