Honestly, I had never really given much thought to
butterflies. I live next to a nature reserve and haven’t walked round it yet; I
count that as a failing in me. I mean, I know what butterflies look like and
how to draw one and how to make a butterfly spread painting and how to produce
a stained glass butterfly window display (that’s what a six year career in
childcare will give you) but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Red
Admiral and the other kinds, though presumably the former has some red on it.
I’ve just seen a play called Life for Beginners and these
insects played a major role. No, it wasn’t a load of contemporary dancers
dressed up, nor was it a summer pre-school production with costumes made of tin
foil and cardboard. It was a proper play with proper actors in a proper theatre
(it even had someone from The Bill in it so there). Now, in my interpretation,
the play was a medley of love stories loosely connected around butterflies, but
it tied in quite neatly with a visit to the Tate I had made earlier that same
day. I did my usual “I’m going to toddle off ON MY OWN and have an adventure”
trick and ended up at a live art exhibition by the prolific artist Tino Sehgal
in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern.
Look, I’ll level with you, I didn’t have a clue what was
going on for the first twenty minutes and I wanted to walk out (I’m talking
about the Tate by the way, not the play… That would just be rude) but I decided
to stick with it and see what happened. I had various performers approach and
tell me about their lives; some had questions, others wanted advice and one
needed some form of reassurance. A lady asked how she could be braver in life
and try new things; that was easy, she just needed a push in the right
direction. But the thing that really stood out for me was forty people chanting
the words “human, nature, human, nature” over and over again. I kept that in
the back of my head and saved it for later.
 |
| Photo courtesy of Life for Beginners © Theatre503 |
So anyway, I was at this play and someone was banging on
about butterflies and how beautiful life was when she let the butterflies
escape from a research lab, and how the sight of thousands of colourful insects
filling the sky had made some people fall in love and others to propose
marriage and others found religion and others lost it and yada yada yada, and
it suddenly reminded me of the whole “human, nature” chant and how maybe they
were actually chanting “human nature, human nature” as in the nature of humans.
Now, I know what you’re thinking; what’s all this got to do
with butterflies? Well, the changes those people made in their lives after
seeing those insects is human nature. We all, inside us, have something that we
are not happy about but don’t change or are scared to change; we need a push.
And sometimes that push comes from an unexpected place, such as a spectacle of
beauty. I’m not saying we all need to immediately don balaclavas and break into
London Zoo, what I’m saying is that sometimes the push for change is closer
than you think; butterflies are all around us.
I hope this hasn’t been too arty or poetical for you, I mean
I wrote this and I’m an idiot. I’m just saying that the urge to change is human
nature, as is the need to question life, the fear of the unknown and sometimes
needing a shove in the right direction. But I’m happy with fearing the unknown
and questioning and changing when the butterflies come along, even if I can’t
tell my Common Blue from my Small Skipper.
After all, we can’t all live in our cocoons forever.
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