“Butterflies don’t fly, I’m not in the skin anymore I’ve lost my emotions you find them yourself? From tonight no, I don’t want to be sick. Give me two wings to fly.” (Sangiovanni, 2022)
Among the many songs of this strange summer, arrived late and then exploded, I happened to listen to Farfalle, a song from last year that talks about a newborn love, able to oxygenate thoughts and lighten your head until you hear to lose it, and I stopped to think about these beautiful and strange insects.
Butterflies have always fascinated me for their beauty, elegance and bright colors, but the most mysterious aspect, in addition to the magical dust of their wings, is that they represent what I often find myself telling the guys I follow at the service where I work, some with personal stories sometimes bordering on the absurd, and that with the gift of synthesis sounds more or less like this:
“It’s all right, but it’s not what happened to you that defines who you are!”
Sure, it may seem like a bit of an outdated metaphor, like the ugly teenage duckling becoming a swan, or even one of those fairy tales like the little girl turning the frog into a prince, but I like to think that some stories aren’t all made up, and that maybe they took inspiration from deep experiences and then become fairy tales or even poems..
Is that also a transformation? Who knows..
However, in my opinion, the butterfly is a whole other story, not only because it is not that the caterpillar puts on wings, it is precisely that it becomes something else by itself, but because before transforming he leads a very different life…
One stripe, the other flies, one is male the other is female (well you understand) he stands with his feet (many) on the ground, she goes around light, he eats the leaf (you know, the caterpillar is suspicious, you do not take him by the nose) she feeds on nectar, he bites her no and all the rest of the day the butterfly.. He’s dedicated to mating!
I mean, this butterfly might be a little naive, but, you know, it could have been worse..
So I was wondering, but why is he sucking the nectar instead of eating the flower himself? You can see that there is nothing left of the old habits, it is not that she has just put on a more beautiful dress, it has just disappeared everything there was before..
All right, let’s get down to it, the thing that fascinates me the most is that butterflies can study them in books, draw them on benches, chase them through the meadows, feel them in the belly, but you can not in any way touch them, not the wings at least, otherwise you risk damaging them preventing them from continuing to fly..
They are a bit like thoughts so you can write them, tell them, change them, try to guess them and then change them again, all… without hands!
It’s not like with lizards, you know, butterflies and thoughts, if you try to hold them still, they die.
Well, maybe in the summer they have different thoughts, but I like to see it this way, that they both never get tired, that they never want to stay still, and that resting or resting sometimes somewhere is just their elegant and light way of taking the chase.
Leave, go.
Kind of like falling asleep. And then wake up. Different.
An antidote to certain summer sadness, which then on second thought are not poison..
Marco Randisi
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