Forty-one. Papillon.
The grandmother I actually knew well when I was growing up was my Nana on my mother's side. Nana is tiny, smaller even than me, with a face that age kissed rather than bludgeoned and quick hands. Nana is an expert cook, and is probably where I got my love of cuisine, and she taught her grandchildren poems as soon as we were able to speak clearly -- another gift, the ability to speak and act and a love of words.
Nana loves butterflies more than any other creature, her house decorated with pretty objects with butterflies on them, and her jewelry always featuring at least one item with a butterfly on it at all times. Her house's garden was a riot of color designed to attract her favorite things, from little hummingbirds to fat honeybees to the butterflies she loved best. My first childhood memory is of Nana explaining that the fat caterpillars that made me shriek when they dropped on me curled themselves up in time and went somewhere new into their cocoons to come back out as the butterflies, and of learning to catch butterflies without damaging their fragile little bodies, then letting them go once more.
I have a company to sell my handmade jewelry now that I call Papillon, because the word in French is a beautiful one, and my house has many little objects that used to be my Nana's. Butterflies mean as much to me now, though you never get to see them enough in the city. In order to reconnect, I've been known to drive to Santa Cruz just to see the monarch migration every year, just for a day or so. To me, they're a reminder of many things: that rebirth needs rest and careful focus. That beautiful things are often fragile, but you can reach for them if you know how. And of Nana herself.
I called her just before writing this to wish her a happy Easter, to ask after her and talk about our family and her garden and how she feels, and to let her be the first member of my family I talked to about my troubles, and Nana said to me, "Don't worry, Mena. You're still growing. It's hard, but you'll fly when it's all over."
It's my new motto. I'll fly when this is all over.
Nana loves butterflies more than any other creature, her house decorated with pretty objects with butterflies on them, and her jewelry always featuring at least one item with a butterfly on it at all times. Her house's garden was a riot of color designed to attract her favorite things, from little hummingbirds to fat honeybees to the butterflies she loved best. My first childhood memory is of Nana explaining that the fat caterpillars that made me shriek when they dropped on me curled themselves up in time and went somewhere new into their cocoons to come back out as the butterflies, and of learning to catch butterflies without damaging their fragile little bodies, then letting them go once more.
I have a company to sell my handmade jewelry now that I call Papillon, because the word in French is a beautiful one, and my house has many little objects that used to be my Nana's. Butterflies mean as much to me now, though you never get to see them enough in the city. In order to reconnect, I've been known to drive to Santa Cruz just to see the monarch migration every year, just for a day or so. To me, they're a reminder of many things: that rebirth needs rest and careful focus. That beautiful things are often fragile, but you can reach for them if you know how. And of Nana herself.
I called her just before writing this to wish her a happy Easter, to ask after her and talk about our family and her garden and how she feels, and to let her be the first member of my family I talked to about my troubles, and Nana said to me, "Don't worry, Mena. You're still growing. It's hard, but you'll fly when it's all over."
It's my new motto. I'll fly when this is all over.