butterflies in february (photos to come)
This weekend, I took an opportunity to drag kiarrith and chaoscat, newly living within reasonable driving distance of DC and therefore Smithsonian Museums, along with Cull and myself to the Natural History museum, ostensibly to see rocks and dinosaurs and other things that were awesome when we were all eight years old. We did see rocks. We briefly scoffed at how dinosaur skeletons are nowhere near as overwhelmingly impressively huge as they seemed when we were eight years old. But most importantly, we were landed on by butterflies and giggled like children at their tiny colourful erratic antics. A magnificent owl butterfly tried to follow me home.
When I was in grade school, my mom would take me through the Smithsonian museums on weekends throughout the summer, and we would visit every single one of them on the Mall in turn, doubling back when temporary exhibits changed. Natural History was always my favourite, yes, for the dinosaurs, and for the rocks and the sort of physically interactive kiddie exhibits they had long before touchscreens. Still, even within its walls there were exhibits I never wanted to see, and chief amongst those was the butterflies. I recall row after row of stodgy, dusty cases full of dead butterflies pinned to boards and put up behind glass, their colours fading over the years under even the best of archival lighting.
Sometime between then and now, those musty cases were relegated to a back hallway of otherwise unused exhibit space by the bathrooms, and a bubble of climate-controlled garden has sprung up in the middle of the stately marble building. Inside are countless live butterflies. On the ceiling, on the lights, on the floor, in the garden eating from their favourite flowers, in your hair. The exhibit is staffed by friendly volunteers (often with alt-culture identification showing through their uniforms), knowledgeably fielding scientific questions and using small paintbrushes to encourage hitchhiking butterflies off of visitors and back inside their specially kept habitat. It is impossible for anyone to spend the tiny admission fee that pays the heating and gardening bills and imports chrysalis to keep their population stable and not gasp in wonder and laugh with true joy at the beautiful, silly things in this world. Even Cull. I recommend anyone visiting the Mall with no direction or with time to spare to start their day with butterflies. Nothing that day can go wrong.
When I was in grade school, my mom would take me through the Smithsonian museums on weekends throughout the summer, and we would visit every single one of them on the Mall in turn, doubling back when temporary exhibits changed. Natural History was always my favourite, yes, for the dinosaurs, and for the rocks and the sort of physically interactive kiddie exhibits they had long before touchscreens. Still, even within its walls there were exhibits I never wanted to see, and chief amongst those was the butterflies. I recall row after row of stodgy, dusty cases full of dead butterflies pinned to boards and put up behind glass, their colours fading over the years under even the best of archival lighting.
Sometime between then and now, those musty cases were relegated to a back hallway of otherwise unused exhibit space by the bathrooms, and a bubble of climate-controlled garden has sprung up in the middle of the stately marble building. Inside are countless live butterflies. On the ceiling, on the lights, on the floor, in the garden eating from their favourite flowers, in your hair. The exhibit is staffed by friendly volunteers (often with alt-culture identification showing through their uniforms), knowledgeably fielding scientific questions and using small paintbrushes to encourage hitchhiking butterflies off of visitors and back inside their specially kept habitat. It is impossible for anyone to spend the tiny admission fee that pays the heating and gardening bills and imports chrysalis to keep their population stable and not gasp in wonder and laugh with true joy at the beautiful, silly things in this world. Even Cull. I recommend anyone visiting the Mall with no direction or with time to spare to start their day with butterflies. Nothing that day can go wrong.