34. Claire
34
CLAIRE
C laire’s diary, Aug 10, 2016.
A memory came back to me:
I’m a kid. It’s the end of summer, everything in Kentucky turning into fall. I’m playing outside in the woods behind the ranch.
I come across a tree. It’s covered in black, fluffy caterpillars. None of them are moving. They’re all frozen in place. I take a stick and poke one of the caterpillars with it to see if it’ll move. Instead, the insect disintegrates completely, pieces of it falling apart and hitting the dried leaves below.
I drop my stick and run away screaming. I run all the way back home. Daddy is on the porch. I throw myself at his legs and sob. He takes me in his lap in attempt to stop my tears and demands that I tell him what’s wrong.
When I tell him about the caterpillars, he informs me: “Caterpillars that don’t turn into a butterfly die.” He swipes away my tears and turns my chin to look me straight in the eyes. “Don’t be a caterpillar.”
I remembered this memory today. It bugged me, so I looked it up.
It’s urban legend. Apparently, caterpillars don’t have to be butterflies. They can be moths. Or they can continue their lives at caterpillars. Depending on the species, they have different cycles. It’s more likely I caught them in a state or diapause (hibernation) or that there was something wrong with the tree and they’d all gotten diseased.
But Daddy’s message was clear. Grow. Change. Be beautiful. Or die.
Be the Belleflower Queen or die.
That’s how I took it, anyway.
I’ve lived with that. I’ve spent my entire life molding myself into the kind of change that’s expected and required of me.
But I’m done forming in his brittle, cold cocoon.
So here’s my mission statement. My own, personal ode to Claire Preacher.
I’m going to be a fucking butterfly. And I’m going to grow my wings my way.