The Aged Fritillary

On Wednesday morning, before work, I stopped for a quick hike through a little green space in town. Near Lederer Park, at the corner of University Drive and Easterly Parkway, you can access a trail that leads through both Walnut Springs Park and the Thompson Woods Preserve.

It is a lovely green space right in the middle of State College, and these used to be my haunts for the ten years or so that I rented a little house on Kemmerer Road, just off Easterly Parkway. From the little house on Kemmerer, it was about two miles (around 3.2 km) to the University where I work. On snowy winter days when the weather was bad, I could (and did) walk it.

In those days, I was a single gal, though dating the man I would eventually marry. And at the time, my closest companion was a big orange tomcat named Gremlin, who lived a good long life but departed this world in June of 2004, just as I was buying the house I live in now.

As I hiked these paths that I remembered so well, that I have walked in every season under the sun - and perhaps most favoritely in winter time, when the paths were covered in snow and there was ice on the creek - it took me back to another day. And I admit I felt . . . wistful. For times and companions that have passed.

And so July ends. And August begins tomorrow. And the days are growing shorter, by just a bit. And on the past few mornings, I felt a coolness in the air that almost smelled like Autumn. And it made me both happy and sad. For I love Autumn perhaps best of all. But the shortening of the days, the winding down of summer, and eventually of the year, these are not things I want to hasten along. I want to linger in the days, fully inhabit each moment.

As I walked back up through the green woods, the path split. Two roads diverged in a green wood. And as the poet says, I picked the one less traveled by, which is to say the path back to my car, and to work.

As I was approaching the parking lot, I saw a brown butterfly flittering among the wild flowers. I leaned close to get a look. The butterfly was a bit faded, no longer the bright orange of its younger days. Light brown, its wings opaque against the morning light. Tattered.

And as I leaned even closer to take a picture, I could sense a message that it framed in all but words. Which was this, my friends: "Seize the day. Enjoy the flowers and the morning sun. Tomorrow will take care of itself."

The song to accompany this photo of the aged fritillary that offered such sage advice is Styx, Sing for the Day. (Oh, and get on out there and carpe the heck out of that diem, friends! For the day awaits!)