Love and Let Grow

As a child, I loved running behind butterflies. I wanted to keep them close to me, so I would capture them between my fingers, and we know that doesn't end well for the butterflies. This little wish of mine cost many butterflies their lives.

Coming back to the present moment, I am kind of grown up now. I no longer run after butterflies. Instead, I go to work, come home, feed myself properly, and try to hit my protein goals. ( This is a conversation for another day)

Back to the dead butterflies, another summer is here with all its majestic and vibrant beauty. On every walk I take outside, I encounter beautiful flowers, butterflies, and children licking ice cream cones.

In some ways, I am still the same little girl oblivious of the violence caused by my desires. Just like the younger me who captured butterflies, the present version of myself longs to run into a field full of daisies and gather a bouquet to take home. Every lily of the valley that mesmerizes me awakens that same old selfish part of me that wants to keep all the beauty of this world to itself. That part of me wants to pluck all the flowers in the world, tuck them behind my ears, press them into books, and keep them with me a little longer.

I fight this younger part of myself each time because I strive to be more loving. In Buddhism, they say the difference between love and like is simple. If you see a flower and pluck it to decorate your home, you merely like it. If you love the flower, you appreciate its beauty, leave it where it is, and go on with your life. To love is is to offer absolute freedom for the beloved to bloom.

Plucking the flower certainly gives me the opportunity to take it home, put it in a vase, and admire it for longer than a fleeting moment. However, within a few days, it is bound to wither and rot. The flower ceases to be the very thing I fell in love with. Its existence, as the flower I once adored, is gone. And off I go on another walk, searching for a new flower to replace it.

I aspire to be the kind of person who lets the flowers I love grow and flourish, even if it means I only see them for a moment before letting them go. It is just as difficult for the present me to practice as it was for the little girl in me to stop capturing butterflies. 

This isn’t about flowers. Or butterflies.

- Anshu Rajput

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They get to fly.

Image
 I was obsessed with helium balloons in my childhood. I used to get excited about buying helium balloons in Melas of my village. Once a balloon was in my hand, my whole world used to revolve around my balloon. That little thing used to be my Sun. It used to light me up. My little miracle. I used to buy a new color every time. Red. Yellow. White. But strangely, all the colors used to make me equally happy. I never got tired of holding a balloon tightly to stop it from flying away. Sadly, despite holding it, tying it to my finger or wrist, and keeping it close to me in the hope that it would stay forever, it still used to slip through my hands. The pain it gave me to see it leave my captivity used to be enough to make me cry. And yet, the beauty it offered in watching it rise in the sky was ineffable. Painful and Beautiful. I used to sit on the terrace and watch it rise until it was invisible. My Baloon! It left me, but it got to fly high, which I didn't get to. At last, I used to ac...
Read more

Death - A True Lover

I do not remember the first time I heard the word death . I do not remember what questions I asked my parents about what it means to die, to be dead, or where we go when we die. But I remember very clearly the moment I met Death for the first time.  I know how ruthlessly, it broke my little heart. I was playing with my dolls when I heard her arrival. I do not remember exactly what it was like, maybe a thak or a tak . But I remember watching a bird fall after striking the ceiling fan of our veranda, and running to pick it up. I watched it die in my little hands. I failed to notice then, but now that I think of that little bird, she was smaller than both my hands put together. Every time I revisit that moment, I know I would have done anything to watch it come alive and reunite with its bird friend, who kept coming back to our veranda for days, searching. This was my first encounter with Death. Since then, it has interrupted many of my days, looked me in the eye, smiled, and snatc...
Read more

Fragments That Made Me

Life has been passing by while I try to put out one fire after another. And yet, I have never felt this close to the little version of myself. Reminiscing about the old days centers me. I don’t remember much, but I’m sure the parts I do remember are the ones that matter most. I remember the mulberry tree in the backyard of our rented one-room home, where every spring filled me with excitement at the promise of juicy black mulberries. I remember the cutest doll someone gave my mother for me, the doll I named Analisa. When I lost her, I had a fever for three days. I remember the bird that died in my arms after hitting the ceiling fan in our veranda. And I remember little me not turning that fan on, even during June, so no other bird would suffer the same fate. I have a vivid memory of the touch-me-not herbs my father planted near our door, and the leaves that every child came to touch. I don’t remember much. It’s been a while, and everything feels like a different life now. But the m...
Read more