Metamorphosis

Do you believe in synchronicity, those meaningful occurrences labelled as coincidence but not actually due to chance? The psychologist Carl Jung who coined the name believed they were related to the observer’s mind and served to provide insight direction and guidance. 

Caroline knew none of this. A coincidence in her view was just that, a coincidence occurring without rhyme or reason. Amusing perhaps but not to be dwelt upon. That was until the day at her local library when things took a surprising turn.

            She had entered the building with no particular wish to borrow a book or even to browse. It was simply a place to pause in rather than go straight home. Not that home was an unpleasant place to be. On the contrary it was rather beautiful, decorated and furnished with taste and style. Her kitchen was a cook’s paradise filled with shining equipment where delicious meals were prepared. The bathroom offered sybaritic delights. Caroline’s husband brought her flowers every week. She could scarcely ask for more but she did. She had everything she wanted but she had begun to feel she was locked in a golden cage and the key had been thrown away. 

There was a comfortable area in the library furnished with easy chairs. Caroline sat down in one of them and closed her eyes. When she opened them she became aware of the book that lay on the table in front of her. Something, an inexplicable urge she couldn’t afterwards explain, made her pick it up and open it. The life cycle of the butterfly the title page told her. It was a subject she would not as a rule be interested in. Again there was this curious feeling of being drawn towards it. She began to read.

Once the caterpillar is hatched from its egg, it spends all its time searching for and consuming food. As it continues to eat and grow it sheds its skin, eats and sheds its skin until the day its hormones send the message that it is time to stop. It finds a safe spot on a leaf and attaches itself, and with the last moult becomes a chrysalis. Then the strange process of metamorphosis begins. The caterpillar releases enzymes that digest all of its tissues except for imaginal disks specialized sacs of cells that are present in the butterfly since its time as an egg. These are made with the purpose of becoming the different parts of the butterfly in the adult stage. The liquidized body of the caterpillar feeds the imaginal disks and they slowly develop into the wings and the many different body parts of the butterfly. There are some 

species that keep their nervous system intact throughout this process and possibly carry over knowledge from their previous stages into adulthood. The chrysalis stages last about a few weeks, and once the butterfly is fully-grown it releases an enzyme to break down the chrysalis and frees itself. 

When a butterfly emerges its wings are wet and wrinkled. The butterfly hangs with its wings down and starts pumping a liquid into their wings so that they become big and strong. After a few hours the butterfly becomes ready to take its first flight.

The library was closing so Caroline took the book home. Over the next days she read and reread this extraordinary story of metamorphosis. She marveled at the process of dying to the old self in order to be reborn, transformed and free, free to fly away. Had she the strength and courage to do the same? Could she unhook herself from the habitual life she led? Or was it all too comfortable and familiar to step out into the unknown? 

When she returned the book she was startled by the librarian’s query: ‘I can’t recognise it. I don’t think you borrowed it from here.’

Caroline took it home and decided it was a further sign the book held a secret message for her. Slowly she began to detach, to view the trappings of her home just as objects that meant little to her. She ceased her daily chasing away of dirt and dust ad found she didn’t mind the patina of neglect that settled. The army of pots and pans remained on their hooks in the skimpily used kitchen. Her husband was the final stumbling block. At first she felt guilty of her disregard but then she realized his affection waned in proportion to her lack of attention to the house. He told her he didn’t like what was ‘going on’. When would she get a grip on herself and let them get back to normal? By normal he meant, of course, each in their clearly defined role. She was occupied in discarding hers like a too tight skin. She sensed she saw him clearly for the first time: he was not a man who loved her for herself but as the exemplary housewife she had been. 

The bathroom was her refuge. She took to spending hours there, lying in the bath in a kind of Nirvana. She let her mind become a blank, her body torpid in the sudsy water, lapsing into a dream state where she imagined herself chrysalis like, in waiting to be released. 

Came the day when she felt she was ready.  She woke that morning with a sense of anticipation, as if something stirred within her, urging her to action. At breakfast she could hardly contain her excitement nor wait for her husband to leave for his office. She drained the last cup of coffee she would drink in this house and stood up. It was time to go. Her plans were vague: she would pack a case and catch a train to London where she would book into a hotel near the airport. From there she’d fly where the fancy took her. The audacity of this made her breathless as she laid the clothes she would need on the bed. 

Something at the back of the wardrobe caught her eye and stopped her in her tracks. As she took out a pair of dainty peep toe bridal shoes, the swell of emotion took her by surprise. She was overcome by nostalgia, of that day, ten years ago, when those shoes had walked her into her new life with her husband. 

Some lines from the book on butterflies came to mind.

There are some species that keep their nervous system intact throughout this process and possibly carry over knowledge from their previous stages into adulthood. 

Memory was such a powerful force could she truly escape even if she flew a million miles?

The faltering moment passed and the future beckoned. Resolutely she put the shoes back into the wardrobe and resumed her packing. As she did so she recalled another phrase from the mysterious book:

When a butterfly emerges its wings are wet and wrinkled. The butterfly hangs with its wings down and starts pumping a liquid into their wings so that they become big and strong. After a few hours the butterfly becomes ready to take its first flight.

Caroline took a last look round the house she was about to leave and called a taxi.

                                                -Ends-