power
It was summer, spring maybe and I was tiny. Like literally. Maybe I was three? Four maybe? Whatever age a child begins to remember stuff was probably the age I was.
I was playing in the garden next to the raspberry bushes as a butterfly came flying and sat down on a flower right in front of me. The butterfly was the yellow kind, brimstone butterfly is apparently what you call them. In German, we just call them Lemon-Butterfly, beautifully descriptive and summery.
So the butterfly just sat there, very close and very still, except for tiniest flaps to maintain balance. I could study its wings closely. So unthinkably thin and fragile, like pressed powder that would dissipate under the slightest touch. I moved my hand closer, hovering over the little thing now, only centimeters separating us. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to know just how breakable these wings were. Would they crumble under my touch? How fragile was a butterfly, like really? As fragile as it seemed? Or was it all just for show?
I moved my fingers even closer and the butterfly still didn’t fly away. It just sat there, passing on the chance to escape that stupid little thing! I could crush it right there and now. I could just smush its wings between my two tiny fingers and that would have been that. Easy peasy way too easy.
I didn’t. I didn’t touch it at all. I moved my hands away and stepped back. Big steps. Far enough that I could not touch it even if I wanted to. I didn’t trust my curiosity, my impulses, didn’t trust them at all. I was frightened of what I was capable of.
Finally the butterfly took off. Flying up and into the air jollily being yellow and flappy and oblivious to the fact it almost died and only did not because a child decided it wouldn't.
That was the first time I felt power and it frightened me deeply.
I can still feel it in my bones and am reminded of it every time I see affection love life in somebody’s eyes. I feel the trust and vulnerability, so beautiful, yet so fragile one could smush it with two fingers. It irritates me sometimes, the power I am handed so easily just because. It is a lot of responsibility not to be taken lightly.
All living things are fragile. Some look it, many don’t, all are.
The butterfly stayed alive and that’s great but but it stayed alive not because of instinct or strength but out of mere dumb luck and that’s not so great is it. Aliveness only thanks to a child’s impulse to chose right over wrong. Quite an ambiguous happy end.