While outside the other week I noticed a small piece of fluff floating in the wind. It spiraled around in the air currents for a while and eventually landed close to where I was standing. The fluff was actually the seed from a milkweed plant, a pest that I have viciously cut down in my own gardens on many occasions. This time it was different, and I really do not know why. Rather than the usual loathing of a plant that I am unable to kill, a flood of childhood memories came back to me. One in particular sticks out more than the others.
I remember finding a caterpillar on a milkweed plant when I was a child. Being curious I captured the young monarch butterfly larvae with a piece of the plant and placed it in a jar with some holes poked in the top. Over the next few weeks I continued to feed the small caterpillar by finding new milkweed and adding it to the jar. Eventually it hung itself upside down from one of the leaves and created a cocoon. Being quite proud of this “accomplishment” I took the jar in to school to show all my friends.
Now, at some point along the way something bad happened to this poor butterfly I was trying to raise. I can not remember if my mother would not allow the jar in the house, or if I just forgot it outside on the picnic table one night. No matter what the reasoning was, it happened to rain that night and the poor jar was flooded when I found it the next morning. I emptied the water from the jar and dried out the cocoon, but it was too late. I never did get to see the butterfly emerge…
It seems odd, and yet exciting at the same time, how something as simple as a small seed floating on the wind can bring back memories like this. Thank you, milkweed, for helping me remember.
Entries (RSS)