The Arrival of Dragonflies

transformation, empty nesting, and the creative life

The high humidity that a local New England meteorologist dubbed “swampy” finally cleared after weeks, and I got back out into the garden on a glorious 75 degree morning.

To be honest, I’ve also been avoiding my garden a bit after finding two dead birds in my yard in June. (Even though I said the birdbath was closed for the season in my last post, I started refilling it again since we were in a heatwave, and the birds seemed stressed.)

From a distance, my garden looks gorgeous.

The weeds have completely taken over, though, with grass growing throughout the mulch in many spots.

When faced with an overwhelming task, whether gardening, writing, or teaching, I’ve learned to use tunnel vision to my benefit and apply the simple philosophical joke, “How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.”

So I doused myself with mosquito repellent and sunscreen and decided to focus only on one flower bed and ignore the rest. Two hours later, success.

Sweat dripping down my back, feet caked with dirt, gloved hands swollen with arthritis, I took a break and admired the garden from one of our outdoor chairs.

Ahh, we don’t sit nature enough and just bask in the glory of it all. Doing one task really helps change your perspective. Starting is often the hardest.

As I drank a cool glass of lemonade, that’s when I spotted the first dragonfly.

It was perched on the back of the metal chair next to me, like an old friend coming to reminisce.

Another landed on the top of a tomato cage.

Another on a cut rose stem.

I don’t live near a pond. The only water source around is my birdbath. And yet here were dragonflies gathering and serving my garden because I had served my garden without spraying any pesticides, by planting a diverse variety of flowers, and by letting nature take its course. There is a balance in letting things be and letting things become.

Three sentinels were keeping watch over my garden, their silver and blue thin bodies framed by fairylike, iridescent wings. I reveled in their ancient magic and the great possibilities of life.

I noticed the air felt carefree and safe, that’s when I realized there were no mosquitoes bugging me. Like none. Zero. Unheard of around here. Normally by August , there are EEE and West Nile Virus mosquito warnings on our newsfeeds. Sure enough, with a little research I discovered that dragonflies eat a ton of mosquitoes. What a gift!

Did you know that dragonflies spend most of their lives as water creatures, and then they grow wings, learn to breathe air, and fly?

Imagine the total transformation that occurs, to move from an aquatic environment to taking in oxygen, sprouting four remarkable wings, and soaring through the fucking sky for the adult stage of your life. Imagine taking flight and discovering you could help the world by devouring the ultimate pest. Talk about adapting, surviving, and thriving!

Funny, if you told a young dragonfly nymph what it would be capable of someday, it would never believe you. It couldn’t even fathom that kind of complete transformation and resiliency in an extreme change of environment.

Great things are possible in our lives that we can’t even imagine now from our current point of view.

As a teacher, I wonder if that’s how teenagers feel about planning their futures. How can we better that conversation to help them plan for the seemingly impossible?

As a writer, how can I keep faith in a crappy first draft, in the alchemy of transforming the imagination into the tangible for others to carry with them?

My oldest daughter once said that I was more of a dragonfly person than a butterfly person, and it struck me as true at the time without thinking about why. Now I understand.

Am I at the dragonfly stage of my life? Perhaps. The precipice of change hovers around me, taunting and pulling, coaxing and retreating. It’s a long process. No one said this level of inner change would be quick or easy.

paint color is called Gentleman’s Gray—ironic that it’s for a woman’s office, and it’s clearly blue, not gray.

My writing office is getting a dramatic color makeover next month. I’m going for a classic writing cave vibe. This room was my youngest bedroom before she left for college. Painting it a deep blue will complete the transformation as being fully my creative space.

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

I was listening to a Mel Robbins podcast this week where they were discussing how to create a new version of yourself by letting go of the past. On the episode, author Sarah Jakes Roberts explains that change cannot happen when we are clinging to old psychological baggage because we still believe we identify with it. I’ve heard this a million times, and I bet you have too, but her fresh advice on how to break through to create substantial change resonated with me.

She said to consider the following:

What did your power look like back then?

What does your power look like now?

We often hold on to old baggage because we think it’s how we keep our power. When we fail to acknowledge that our situations have changed, we disempower ourselves with the weight of the past assuming that’s who we still are.

We can honor our past through the wisdom it provided to us, but we always get to choose who we are in the present, over and over again, by seeking that which empowers us today.

Perhaps this is another reason why empty nesting is initially so damn hard. We experience it as a disempowerment after pouring all that energy into raising our children, and then we hold onto that young parent identity like a protective shield to our self-worth.

But the opposite is true. Energy is never lost. That energy returns to the self once we recognize who we are becoming, and we shed the barrier we thought was a shield.

I’m ready for joy, hope, and reaching for more.

What changes have you been focusing on lately? How’s it going? Let me know in the comments!