Hold the parsley please!

A Taste of Nostalgia.......

I returned to Houston from a very hot, very short trip to Las Vegas to find that in my absence, it didn't rain and my plants didn't get the water from the automatic sprinkler system. My lemon had curled leaves, the ficus had leaves turning yellow, the rosemary was naturally dried, and the rest of my herbs, how sad.... the basil just limp and wilted, the thyme was out of time, parsley? What is up with the parsley? I watered my plants and took in the wonderful Houston humidity then, as quick as I could I escaped the wonderful Houston humidity inside in the air conditioning. As the day wore on and the temperature cooled off I went back out to check to see what could be salvaged. The basil was strong and fragrant, the thyme found it's second wind, the citrus, bright and shiny but the parsley? What is up with the parsley? I took a closer look and someone has been eating my parsley.....

My mind went back to distant summers. Catching lightening bugs with my Sun. Bedtime stories finished with the lights out and the two of us on his bunk bed mesmerized by the tiny lights in his bug bottle.

Back then, my plants were worthy of mentioning, even stealing, as I found out when while I was home, someone came into my courtyard and stole my geranium that was 3 feet across and had 15 massive blooms. I have to admit, it was enviable. My balcony dripped with blooms from flower boxes, tended with patience and peace. But my parsley...What was up with my parsley??

One humid evening my Sun was in the courtyard catching geckos when he began to take a closer look at my parsley. He emptied out his bug bottle full of geckos and came running in the house excited by his new find. We broke out the encyclopedia and began to peruse the pages, looking for pictures to match his new find. As I am thumbing the pages, he is letting the caterpillar climb back and forth on a twig and a parsley stem. In the process, he pokes the critter with the twig and the caterpillar quickly stopped and erected two bright yellow feathery antennea and emitted a strong scent, the scent of ground parsley. Back before the Internet, encyclopedias didn't have picture for every caterpillar. We decide to make this a nameless pet and see if we can watch it become a butterfly. For weeks it dined on only the best organic parsley (by this time I had to buy it at the store because the nameless one had an appetite that rivaled a 13 year old athlete in the midst of a growing spurt) And then one day...then one day when we thought all was well, it just stopped eating. I could see a disappointment brewing. It climbed to a high spot on the twig placed in the bottle and it just sat. It sat and occasionally wiggled. It threw it's head around as if in agony and it began to lose it's vibrant colors, then it's legs and we were sure, our nameless pet was gone....until......it seemed to catch it's second wind. hanging by it's back feet (or what was left of them) it hung and wriggled, it twitched, it convulsed with rhythm and we noticed the very fine shimmer of silk as it spun it's chrysalis. The world became small and large all at once. We watched patiently for hours with Oreos and milk until it moved no more and resembled nothing we once knew. And then......it was still......

Days passed as well as most of our interest. the bug bottle sat on the coffee table and was, as most items on coffee tables are, a conversation piece. at one point the conversation was what should we do with it? Is it dead? How long does it take for a butterfly to emerge? What stages in life are like this for humans? Do we give up? And then we noticed a change in the chrysalis, a twitch here, a lightening there, the once plump oval, now finer, thinner in shape. Our interest was renewed and more Oreos were called for. We watched patiently as the nameless one began to emerge. With a twitch, a squeeze, a turn and a long stretch, out, slowly, out emerged what appeared to be a wet wasp. No way! No Way! I knew the life cycle of bugs and this was not a step in waspness and worse yet, before I could say another word, the dangerous wasp-thing was now on my Sun's young fingers.

I never knew that boy could have such patience. He sat for hours as the butterfly slowly unfurled it wings and dried and hardened them. It was magic, shear magic as we sat, talked about letting go, changes, life and there, before we knew it, it flew and was gone. One of those moments that I hope plays in slow motion when my life passes before my eyes, my boy and the butterfly.

For the next 6 years we managed to get parsley plants in the spring that had the presence of these critters. We eventually found out that they were Swallowtail butterflies. Nothing more beautiful that I can recall, other than his hands around the bug bottle when he first discovered them.

So there I was in the Houston Humidity. My Sun in the desert of Nevada and we were connected by the silk of a memory as I called to tell him, after years of the absence of the nameless ones, here they were again. I had two. Just a little parsley left. I dug through the cabinets to find a large vase. I captured the creatures and set out to find a child for them. I approached the mother on the corner, she looked at me like I was dangerous and the bottle of parsley was poison. I approached the mother next door and got a quick "no thank you, we're allergic", when I heard the shrill scream of a little girl voice across the street. Before I knew it, I was at the door knocking. Little eyes peering through the blinds and finally the door cautiously opened as the mom stood there. I explained I was desperate and I needed children.....ok, not the right thing to say. I explained I needed butterfly hatchers, I heard her daughters were just the right size to hatch a couple of butterflies. OK, now if my neighbors thought I was odd before (loner, gone often, shades drawn etc...) now I had convinced them it was true. The mom looked down protectively at her daughters and melted with the sized of their eyes. They did the butterfly delight dance as if they had waited their entire lives for this very moment and Summer, True Summer, with exploration and adventure had just arrived in a bottle. I found a home for the nameless ones......and my parsley will now survive.

What a wonderful way to start the summer. I called my Sun and we were lost in the wings of a butterfly once again.

Hold my parsley please, it's very close to my heart