by Trisha Cull
China Beach glitters in the distance, through the tall trees.
The path is rough and steep, has been made by bulldozing old-growth trees that once led from the shore to the top of hill, to here. Then they levelled the way at intervals, creating steps, laden with wood or hardened earth for your foothold. So you step alternately on earth and wood to make your way from the top to the bottom of the path, or from the bottom of the path to the top upon your steady and calculated return.
There is a metallic-gold coloration found in the pupae of many butterflies:
When the caterpillar is fully grown, it makes a button of silk which it uses to fasten itself to a leaf or twig. Then the caterpillar’s skin comes off for the final time. Under this old skin is a hard skin called a chrysalis.
Through a clearing in the trees, where the eagles soar, I see the ocean, dazzling and green, glittering before me from east to west, from the invisible northern shore to the southern shore where the tide sucks at the pebbles, sloshing in and out of the tide pool.
The date is September 8, 2012.
I have long since known that if I die, when I die, I want my body burned and my ashes spread over the ocean here. This is where I have experienced my greatest joy since moving to Vancouver Island when I was eighteen.
This is where I belong. I no longer want to die. I want to live. I want to live again and again. I do not want to live once and that be it. I want it to never end, this living.
The depression has lifted.
I have fifteen scars on my left and right wrists. I have four raised red scars on the soft right side of my belly. I have a cross burned into my chest above my left breast and a small raised burn mark above my belly button, above the butterfly tattoo.
Some butterfly pupae are capable of moving the abdominal segments to produce sounds or to scare away potential predators. Within chrysalis, growth and differentiation occur. The adult butterfly emerges (ecloses) from this and expands its wings.
My heart is full.
I am in love with two men at the same time. The first man I cannot have but will love forever. He saved my life. He brought me from despair to where I am now, to salvation. The second man I have with me now, and we will build a life together, we will travel together.
I have saved myself.
I have saved myself with the help of those around me: Dr. P; my psychologist Fiona, whom I will never forget; my GP, Dr. W; family and friends. I woke up hungover for the last time. I pulled myself from the delirium of over-the-counter cough remedies for the last time. I gave them up for the last time.
And now I’m returning to you.
Although the sudden and rapid change from pupa to imago is often called metamorphosis, metamorphosis is really the whole series of changes from egg to adult. On emerging, the butterfly uses a liquid which softens the shell of the chrysalis. It also uses its two sharp claws at the base of the forewings to help make its way out.
I am lying on the beach. Large, round, smooth, hot stones under my back and legs. My legs and shoulders are bare and feel the heat of the stones. I have lifted up my pink tank top to expose my belly, my butterfly tattoo, the small raised burn mark above it. I place small hot round stones, each one smooth, upon my scars. I breathe and the stones rise and fall. I leave them there. I place stones on my upturned left wrist where most of my long vertical scars reside. I lie there with stones on my belly and wrist, let the heat of the stones penetrate and cover my wounds, absorb the pain of the past.
Having emerged from the chrysalis, the butterfly will usually sit on the empty shell in order to expand and harden its wings.
Photo: George Ellenbogen
About the Author
Trisha Cull is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA Creative Writing program. Her work has been published in Room of One’s Own, Descant, subTerrain, Geist, The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review and PRISM. She was the winner of Lichen’s “Tracking a Serial Poet” contest in 2006, PRISM’s Communications Award for Literary Non-fiction in 2007, and was also the winner of Prairie Fire’s 2007 Bliss Carman Poetry Award. Cull lives in Victoria, BC.
