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It was a dinner party joke. His go-to response when someone felt the need to point out how incredibly different we were.
"Yep," he'd say, "My wife is like a fluttering butterfly, and I'm like..."
He'd stop here on purpose, holding his glass like he held his silences- fearlessly, steadily. Sometimes people would try to fill his space. (A cactus. A rare orchid. A bee. A bird.)
But no one ever guessed what he'd say next. No one ever could.
"Well. I'm like molten lava."
They'd laugh. Everyone always laughed, because it was a ridiculous analogy, and because it was true, and because never had they ever imagined a butterfly could be so dazzled by lava.
And they'd never seen molten lava love anything more than her flutter.
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On a quiet Friday, I curled up on my fire engine and worried about how different I would be when I finally came home after a year away. I flipped my book of trivia open to a random page, and read about the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly.
Apparently, caterpillars almost completely liquify in the cocoon. An organ or two remains, but they ultimately have to restructure themselves from their basic building blocks in order to become a butterfly- so they do.
How inspiring, I thought- I'll tell my husband all about it on our first day back together.
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He was molten lava.
And one day, I might become the butterfly he thought I was.
But right now, I am liquified like the caterpillar, resting all my inspiration in my deeply-rooted need for wings.
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What does inspiration mean to you?
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