1.

The first time I touched a moth, I shuddered. I discovered it when I crawled out of bed one morning. It was laying, motionless, presumably dead, where my right leg used to be. How long had it slept with me? Had I rolled over it and killed it? How the heck am I getting rid of it? A folded tissue answered my last question, but my revulsion remained.

The second time I touched a moth, I was amazed. Like the first time, it was purely accidental. It flew into my hand and instantly dropped into the car’s cup holder beside me. The collision site was shimmering with the moth’s wing dust, the eyeshadow like dust that gave it flight. Flight, which gave it independence and means to fend for itself. Flight, which it could not live without.

2.

She struggles with the words to describe what she is feeling. “You like being more independent,” I paraphrase what I’ve heard so far. Her breath clouds the phone for a second. “Yes.. that was the word I was looking for. Independent.”

3.

“I really admire your relationship,” my friend says, her long fingers playing with her coffee cup. “You don’t have to be together all the time. You’re independent.”

4.

I loved going to children’s chapel, which took place during the adult’s church service (boring to a five year old). When my brother was sent to get me, I would refuse to hold his hand because I could walk by myself.

5.

In the first grade, my class learned about butterflies. I was obsessed with the word, “chrysalis” for weeks, especially as we watched tiny cocoons in mason jars. I wondered what it was like inside. Was it warm, like when I was wrapped in my parent’s arms? Or was it more like a sleeping bag? Constricting, but oddly comforting? Or is it pure sleep with shadowy dreams of its caterpillar days?

When my Painted Lady butterfly broke out of its chrysalis, it fluttered quietly, discovering it now had wings. And during a warm, spring day we let them go, watching them disappear in sunlight.