Catching Butterflies
I was in the third grade twice. The first time was a trial run. A false start, if you will. My teacher recognized that there were broken parts to me. She had ideas about how to mend them and sent me back to the second grade to do so. In the second grade, I met the people who would be my classmates for the next fifty years.
Upon my second attempt at the third grade, I had the same teacher. She insisted on it. Over the years, we developed a relationship quite different from that of a third-grade teacher and a third-grade student. In time, she would charge me with certain responsibilities. Responsibilities that were particularly precious to her—but perhaps more to me.
Her classroom was filled with marvels. She wanted us to see the world as an infinitely amazing place where magic was possible and beauty was everywhere we looked.
In the corner of her room was a butterfly net. We never got to use it. I suppose the idea of a bunch of third graders trying to catch butterflies wedged in between Old Canton Road and the interstate highway made her nervous. Third graders generally consider themselves immortal, especially around traffic. They're not.
Unused, the butterfly net kept company with the cow's heart in a jar, mermaid's purses, dried, inflated spiny pufferfish, arrowheads, shark’s teeth, trilobite fossils, and all the other amazing things in her collection, meant to ignite a fire in our third-grade imaginations.
Butterfly nets are enormous. Up to two feet in diameter, they're so large because, while they fly very slowly compared to birds, butterflies move sporadically and unpredictably, making it remarkably difficult to catch one.
In open fields where traffic poses no danger, it's not unusual to see teams of third graders wear out their tiny legs, trying but not catching butterflies.
A much better plan is to sit among the flowers that butterflies like, as quietly and patiently as a third grader can, and a butterfly might just land on your nose.
It seems she was right. The world is full of magical things.
