On metamorphosis and maturation

In my second grade class, we got this butterfly kit, a kind of introduction to the microcosm and melodrama of metamorphosis.

It included these little plastic tubs with holes punched in the tops, with caterpillars crawling around in this delightfully disgusting golden goo that was supposed to be their food. The class watched them get fat, inching around, eating, pooping on their food, eating some more.

Eventually, the caterpillar would inch its hefty little body to the underside of the lid. There, it managed to attach its tail end to the ceiling of its little house and spin itself a bright green, pristine chrysalis. Then, we took the lids off and attached them to the top of this tube-shaped net, the tiny delicate house swinging when moved.

The class waited a week or so later, and finally, monarch butterflies emerged, orange and flashy and regal. Their eyes were big, bodies thin and delicate; they were beautiful, and so wholly different from the short stubby things they had been when I had last seen them.

Metamorphosis is an apt symbol of growing up, of maturation. It's about as literal of a representation as one can get: a caterpillar grows fat, too heavy for adolescence, and encases and transforms itself into something completely new and different, as a mature member of its species.

The process of metamorphosis for cicadas, however, is quite different.

Female cicadas lay eggs in small cracks and crevices in tree branches. When they hatch, the tiny creatures drop to the the ground and burrow into it. There, the pupae grow and mature, living off of who-knows-what.

Finally, when it is warm enough, they emerge simultaneously from the soil, ready to molt to an adult, driven by some insane and inexplicable instinct. Then, a cicada attaches itself to the bark of a tree and emerges from its exoskeleton as a wet, green, sickly-looking thing with over-sized eyes. Slowly, it will dry out and become the brown hordes that will buzz incessantly for the next four weeks or so.

We had three huge mulberry trees in the front yard of my childhood home, and their bark was often carpeted with the pale yellow, crisp skins left behind by the molting cicadas. Fascinated by them, I would often spend hours plucking them off the bark, crushing them, studying the minute structure of those odd creatures.

The creatures hardly had the same grace and beauty that butterflies are admired for. And that's not even mentioning the noise. But I still couldn't help appreciate their determination, their ability to push forward, their readiness to progress and change.

The human metamorphosis seems to a be a combination of the two species. It is half the desire of the caterpillar, to become something more elegant, beautiful, greater. And it is half the goal of the cicada: to rid itself of a stiff, constricting skin. Our skin has grown too rigid, and we are outgrowing them.

No matter how underdeveloped they may see, we still need room to spread wings that have been slowly growing underneath our hardening skin. The difference? We get to decide what those wings will look like, and what they will help us do.