Update: Longshot is still hanging around.
First observed in chrysallis form on October 28, Longshot remains green and silent. Unless eyes deceive, part of the chrysallis may be darkening. Decay or destiny?
A pocket of unseasonably fair weather has descended, Longshot appears to have a weather window between now and Thanksgiving. Odds remain long. Stay tuned.
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She returned this evening, as she does. A praying mantis. Each evening now, as days shorten and chill, she overnights near my office window.
Like her mother before her, she laid egg cases in the agastache in the garden beneath the window and now sits quietly next to them. Her mother was the biggest praying mantis I ever saw. Inside the gate, tucked off from harsh wind, the garden is protected. A good place to live life.
She is dying now – like her mother before her. Once bright green, she is browning. She remains so still I think she has already passed. It is so cold now. In spring, I will bury her in that garden as I did her mother. I am sure there is a keen biological reason for the similarity of habit. But I prefer the memory of generations.
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The sky blushed apricot this morning, the sun a burnt orange disk on the horizon. Colours only seen at dawn and dusk, my bedroom is painted the same colour — chilled cantaloupe they call it. Nothing cold about it.
It is out there right now, view available to all, no expensive real estate, frequent flier miles or reservations required. Just look up.
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And for all of you that live stateside, today is the day. Don’t forget to get out and rock that vote.
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I visited my hometown last summer, stayed with old friends. You know it doesn’t get better than that.
Early morning I was up before the rest. At a window, night wind passing on, making way for sun not yet over the mountains.
A breeze and ten, twenty, years passes. Wind lifting, testing the strength of tree branches. Trees age like us, weaken, die.
But wind lives forever, cycles more rapidly than water. Touched my face in this place when I was young, swirls back these memories to me now that I am not.
Down the street an elderly man walks. Dressed casually but well. Stooped, with blue ballcap, matching blue backpack. Alone on his way, like you, me, and the wind.
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It was the sharp colour on dead leaves that caught my eye. About two weeks ago. Closer inspection turned up a monarch caterpillar. Surprisingly plump fellow for the decaying stalks of milkweed in his vicinity.
With drought and all sorts of fancy weather patterns, we spotted no monarch caterpillars this year, assuming, like everything else in the garden, they bloomed and flew off early.
But here was a longshot. Closing in on November, no food source, and nighttime temperatures edging toward a freeze. To improve his chances, I relocated him to a more secluded spot in the garden where milkweed leaves remained large and green.
Just that night a storm blew through, by morning I found no trace. Wherever it was, I wished it well.
Cleaning up the garden this week, there are few leaves left on any tree or plant. Filling a composting bag, I turned to scoop up another leaf pile when I noticed it. Hanging by the slimmest of threads on the edge of the bag, the unmistakable form of a monarch chrysalis, green sheathed cocoon with golden zipper, caught on the bag itself. From the location, my guess is I had seen this fellow before. It wove its chrysalis onto a dead leaf that promptly blew into the garden, leaving it dreadfully exposed.
I tied a tiny thread on the chrysalis stem, suspended it from a stick, and placed it in a jar. It rode out distant echoes of Hurricane Sandy inside my house, inside its chrysalis. I watch daily for signs of failure, they may yet come, its journey late begun, then disrupted, now still.
This one is a Longshot, the name stuck. I am hoping for the best.
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Thoughts, prayers, and the very best wishes to anyone within reach of Hurricane Sandy. Take good care.
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Autumn. Leaves on the ground, leaves on a tree, spreading. Taken together, which is up, which is down? Mirror.
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Around and around it goes – and continues to go. My thanks for every single good wish. No resolution, but yet more direction – and around and around it goes.
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