Every year in late summer, Amy searches the local fields for monarch butterfly caterpillars; she brings them home and puts them in a netted container, where she raises them for some weeks until they form a chrysalis and then hatch. The monarch chrysalis is my favorite stage -- I find the gold beading on each green shell to be truly miraculous. But of course the hatching and the fledging of the butterflies is pretty great too.
My wonderful cousin Philip has been going through some wonderful stages too. He is a self-taught artist. Five years ago he wrote and illustrated a great children's book, Mommy Has A Tattoo (Phil is quite tattooed himself). In 2010, while working as a guard at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Phil was swept up in the media attention surrounding the publication of Swipe, an art journal established to feature the artwork of museum guards (including Phil).
Not surprisingly, the beautiful stages of the monarch were in my mind this fall when we had the privilege of attending Phil and Lauren's wedding.
It somehow seems that at this moment in my life, the stages come fast and furious. With Sarah's start of college this fall, our children have both fledged; they are building new important relationships and thinking about their futures. Rebecca has one semester left in college and is interviewing for jobs. Wow! The trite phrase becomes our reality: "It seems like only yesterday when ..."
We have been very, very busy this fall. My photo blog posts have become rather intermittent. Perhaps I will post more reliably in 2012; what is clear to me is that (camera in hand or not) I have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty and joy of each change as it comes.
