I’ve always had a curious soul, particularly for small things. I write this as if I collected buttons or loved to sift through sand for tiny shells. One of the two is true, but what I mean to say is that I’ve always found small living things fascinating. Do you remember my opae ula essay?
Lately, this has been the season for moths; those bastard cousins of the butterflies. Both come from the same order of species, the Lepidoptera. When we think of moths we usually think of moth balls and yet we rarely think of them eating our clothes. I’m sure our grandparents did.
Over the past two months, I’ve noticed some of the most beautiful moths in a most peculiar place—near the building’s elevator. Every day I leave the building for one reason or another, and every day I see a new variety. They rest near the elevator doors unconcerned with the humans that pass under them, tiny flecks of color pasted to the stucco.
It’s amusing to me that many of these moths have shapes and colors to camouflage themselves from predators and yet at the elevators they are as plain to see as a ketchup stain on a white blouse.
I’m thankful for their lack of discretion because it’s given me the opportunity to admire the various colors, patterns, and shapes they arrive in. This morning their was a beige one above the elevator door. Its wings were spread out like an akomeogi with a very asymmetrical pattern of brown horizontal lines running across them.
As a caterpillar, the moth’s reputation is not good. They are one of the world’s major agricultural pests. The eat and destroy the plants we want to enjoy while their cousins have chosen less desirable comestibles. Their bad decisions have superseded any beauty that may come once they’ve left the cocoon.
Beauty. That’s what what my trips to the elevator are about. It’s about appreciating beauty from the smallest to the largest; from the mundane to the extraordinary. Beauty is everywhere even when it eats our crops and destroys our clothes.
I’ve been thinking about when these mothly visits will end, and I’ve been thinking about how they’ve reminded me of that deeper meaning of observation. All it takes is a small amount of time to see the beauty right in front of us even in something resting on a wall.
