The Birds And The Butterflies

By Amy K. Nichols

Amy K. Nichols

We’re growing butterflies at our house. We bought a butterfly habitat and sent away for larvae. They arrived in a little plastic cup. We watched the larvae crawl around and eat and grow and change into fuzzy caterpillars. We watched them spin silk webs all over the cup and make an enormous mess of the place. Then we watched them crawl to the top of the cup, hang upside down like little J’s and spin cocoons around themselves.

Yesterday we transferred the cocoons to their habitat where they’ll (hopefully) emerge as fluttering beauties. While we were moving them, one of the cocoons began to wiggle. My daughter and I gasped. It sounds silly to say it, but it occurred to me at that point that there is life going on inside those cocoons. Even though we don’t see it, change is happening. We’ve seen pictures of what the butterflies will look like, but what will our butterflies look like? All we can do is protect the habitat and wait and see.

A couple of finches have taken up residence in a bird house in our back yard. For the last couple of weeks we’ve watched them gather sticks from our yard to build a nest. When we look in the house, we see Mrs. Finch sitting patiently. She must be sitting there for a reason. We’re hopeful, trusting in time there will soon be baby finches. In the meantime, we’re leaving the bird house alone.

Two doves tried to build a nest on a skinny ledge at the front of our house. For a couple of days we watched the male bird bring twigs to the female. She sat on the twigs and tried to build them into a nest. The ledge is narrow, though, and it’s a particularly windy spot. Between the wind and Mr. Dove stepping over the Mrs. to get more twigs, the nest blew down. Again and again. Sticks littered the ground beneath the ledge. Still they worked and worked. At the end of two days, they’d built a meager nest. Then one of my kids startled the birds and the nest blew down. Mr. Dove flew away and never returned. Mrs. Dove laid an egg without a nest. It rolled off the ledge and splattered on the concrete below. We were sad, but not surprised. Mrs. Dove has flown away. The ledge is empty.  I swept the sticks into the yard, hoping other birds might use them.

I’ve been watching these events and thinking about the lessons they teach. There are a lot of life lessons, of course; but as far as writing and creativity go, what I’ve come away with is this:

Your environment affects your creative work. If your environment provides care and shelter and food, your creative work has a chance of surviving. Even thriving. But if your environment is chaotic and intrusive and ramshackle, your work is going to suffer.

What do you think? Is this a fair statement? Have you found this to be true in your own writing and creative environments? Or have I just been watching birds and cocoons too long?