I know the title sounds like a book title or maybe even a special series you might watch on PBS , but it has a totally different meaning to me...almost as rich in nature. The past month or so has been a pleasant departure from my normal September blues and instead has been a time of reflection and introspection. My Monarch Butterflies that I'm so fond of are drifting across the prairie each day in abundant numbers, and seem to do so effortlessly even the strong southern breezes that dominant the days as of late. I remember when the sight of them brought back such strong memories and would leave me in a melancholy state for a month, but now I'm tickled pink when I spot the first one of the season - usually in late August (this year on the 28th, if I remember correctly). I'm always so thankful to God for such an amazing creation. Something so delicate and literally unnoticed, they fly thousands of miles in the late summer and fall to congregate in one small area on the slopes of a mountain in Mexico to winter there in clusters, just to start the return trek in spring only to mate once and die. Their offspring will continue the journey only to soon mate and die, followed by another generation or two repeating the process - northward, ever northward; they will fly hundreds of miles, feasting on milkweed, then mate and die...and the last generation of that year will abruptly answer some unforeseen call of nature to migrate back to Mexico, and will make the entire return journey without mating to join millions of others back on the slopes that there great-grandparents left just months earlier.
I think there is something so lovingly romantic about this mass migration, and maybe it is because of how it affected me when I first observed it back in September of 2003. This year as the time approached, I ran across an old song that I hadn't heard in years and even when I heard it in the past, it was not one that I cared about, but this year when I heard it, and examined it, it became a song I associated with longing, past loves, running away - but never forgetting. The song is "Gentle on My Mind" written by John Hartford and made famous by Glen Campbell even before my birth. I enjoyed the original version, but having watched some live performances of it much later in Glen's career, I enjoyed the later modifications, which didn't affect the lyrics of the song, but put a more modern sound in it. I probably played it hundreds of times throughout the month and added it to my "Quotations, lyrics, poems (etc)" page, with emphasis on the lines that are the most meaningful to me. It's through the lenses that I view life in my later years that I completely appreciate that story being told in the lyrics, and even modify them to fit my own past - to include the period before the Monarch's arrived in my life. And even more so to the loves that came afterwards.
I have lived a life that if I had any idea about it in my early 20s, I think I may have worried myself into some type of psychotic episode. Back then, I was petrified of the unknown, the bigger world, ideas that differed from the indoctrination of my upbringing, and was happy to be married and to have that foundation of stability to lean on as the turmoil of life's storms encroached on the boundaries of my existence from time to time. Then one day, it was like an earthquake upset that whole institution and rocked my thoughts about it, and nearly everything else. Since then, I've loved more than I ever thought possible, lost at it a lot more than I imagined I could recover from, and still, I can look back at beautiful memories, recall smiles, laughter, the touch of a hand, the taste of a shared kiss, the exchange of gifts given completely out of admiration and loving affection, and even still feel the goosebumps of moments when I knew I was in love...sometimes, hopelessly.
Looking at the lives of those who I've loved who have come and gone, I've seen almost all of them progress to become parents of beautiful children. I had a friend once asked me over dinner if it's difficult to see their children or photos of them and does it make me sad. Quite the opposite, I love seeing them. I don't feel any type of depression or regret. What I feel instead is thankful to God, because no matter the situation that caused our departures from one another, I prayed for them to find happiness and to build families, leave legacies, and be blessed throughout their lives. True, the what-ifs of life can tug at my heart from time to time, but I also have to ask "what-if" you'd never made them as happy as they are now? If they are happy, I ultimately got what I wanted for them, and I thank God for it.
So my Monarch's will be soaring today. As I write this, it is just a bit after 6 am in the morning, and my fishing poles are sitting by the door. I hope that I will see a few of my wandering wayfarers as they dance across that open stretch of lake that has brought me so much peace and serenity over the past few months, and just as with their ancestors and my past loves - I hope they make it through many more seasons, unburdened and soaring to greater heights than any they would have imagined in their youths. At present, I've found love and contentment, and I know I am loved. God is great in all things and in all things, God is great!