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continued from p. 17
They’d float down to a milkweed leaf and squirm a
little, depositing eggs. I inspected the milkweed daily. The
eggs became tiny green caterpillars
who then turned yellow and black,
plumped from gorging on milkweed.
And then they would disappear. I
never saw a chrysalis.
As I stood adoring the one cat
erpillar that remained, a wasp flew
right into it, ramming it off the leaf. I
thought maybe this was an accident. I
saw where the caterpillar landed and
planned to set it back onto the leaf as
soon as the wasp left. But the wasp
hunted it, going first back to the leaf,
then dropping in a nearby pot search
ing, then flew into the pot where the
caterpillar lay. The wasp landed on it
and stung it over and over as the cat
erpillar contorted. I turned away, hor
rified. A punch to the gut delivered by
the business of nature.
The circle of life had taken a dark
turn, and I wasn’t up for it. I couldn’t
help but feel responsible not just for
the caterpillar killed in front of me, but all the others who
had possibly died the same way. I enticed the butterflies
here by supplying the food they had to have, and then I had
wasps on the ready to eat them.
I wallowed in remorse for a day and then something
inside me shifted. It clearly said, “Screw this.” The wasps I
could accept, but not my helplessness. So, I acted. When the
next caterpillar appeared in October, I was ready with mesh
netting and a portable tent.
We had a beautiful fall; adult Monarchs came by often. I
checked the leaves of the milkweed every day. Finally, after
a month, I saw a caterpillar and I sprang into action, wrap
ping the plant securely with the netting. But a cold front
was moving in. I transferred milkweed and caterpillar into a
pot, covered it with the tent and brought it inside.
It was a month of transformation. It became still and
hung upside down. It turned into a green pod. A gold
thread appeared around the pod,
then the pod became thin, and I could
see wings inside! Then one Saturday
when I came home from the farmer’s
market, it had emerged.
It was a warm November day,
and I gently removed the tent and
sat beside it for two hours, guarding
against birds and wasps. It soaked up
the sun’s rays, and slowly unfurled,
uncurling its antennae, then opening
its wings with difficulty, wider and
wider. Suddenly it lifted, flying across
the street headed south.
I did not see a single monarch this
year. But I still plant milkweed. There
is something stronger than the hard
world, something better within us all.
Kathryn Kyker is a retired social worker whose
memoir, Surprised by Nothing, is being pub
lished this summer.
The Disquieting Aftermath
By Mark Clegg
I turned 66 two days after the election.
In Athens, warm and humid September weather had
stretched through the entire month of October and even
extended its reach into the second week of November. Any
hint of autumnal relief in the form of cool breezes or sooth
ing rains has been fleeting to nonexistent in most of North
Georgia during the most anxious fall season that I ever
remember.
On the Friday after the election, the North Oconee River
was quiet and undisturbed. Temperatures, once again,
broke 80 degrees. I was a bit comforted to learn that I was
walking through an area that, according to the signage, was
the “Piedmont Prairie.” I had never heard of such a land
classification but was grateful that, at the age of 66,1 had
once again learned something new. There was no “bustle in
the hedgerow,” in this stretch of the Piedmont Prairie, no
sense of small creatures, migratory birds or even insects
making final preparations for a winter that seems to have
been postponed or even cancelled. Even the river itself,
murky and languid, seemed empty of life. Maybe the wild
life had picked up on the exhausted and solemn vibes of
the humans always on the periphery of or pushing through
their ecosystem. Or perhaps, when sensing a change in
their environment that they don’t yet understand, simply
remaining quiet and paying close attention to what hap
pens next is hard-wired into their DNA. Life is always
dangerous for all sentient beings; it is the new, unforeseen
threats though, that frighten and bewilder us the most.
Every trip to Athens is a personal revelation, as I strug
gle to absorb changes that have occurred since my last
visit—many of these changes, I always learn, took place
months or even years before I finally notice them.
Driving down Prince Avenue, the church of my child
hood, Young Harris Methodist, was gone—apparently
another victim of a Culture War schism that has ripped
the mother church, and this nation, apart. The traffic, even
during a non-home football game weekend, was worri
some, another reminder, in case anyone needed remind
ing, that the secrets of Athens’s charms are no longer
closely guarded, and the uniquely quirky qualities of the
Classic City are in risk of being buried in an avalanche of
development.
I missed the destruction of the sui generis Varsity—an
Athens icon if there ever was one—by just a few days.
Apparently the closed restaurant’s date with the wrecking
ball caught even Athenians unawares, and the rubble—a
large section of smashed red awning was the only thing
► continued on p. 20
January 6,1-3PM
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