Here, into 2021

     I heard that 2020 was the year of the butterfly. That prospect left me with mixed feelings. I often spent time in my life watching butterflies and even trying to follow after a few, so I remember all that had gained, usually bitter disappointment. However, that said, the gentle manner of the butterfly is soothing. The calm of the butterfly brings a peacefulness and the weather in which to watch and enjoy butterflies usually rolls in on the exiting April and into May all the way through September. I hope it means the butterfly has landed instead. That the year will be marked with beauty and transformation rather than the somewhat gut wrenching dance and escape of flittering erratic motions of the Butterfly. The Papillion as the French call it. Or Le papillon which I find interesting because I don't believe butterflies are usually thought of as masculine.  There is a 2002 film called Le Papillion  or The butterfly but I am reminded of the original film with Dustin Hoffman and starring Steve McQueen. McQueen has several run ins with captures and was ultimate banished to a prison colony on an island which made me think naturally of Napoleon on banishment. Hoffman being slightly diminutive made me think they were possibly eluding to some real life historical person who had been cast off to imprisonment on an island only to find the mild fate of Napoleon living out his days  in exile to Elba, a Mediterranean Island. Seems pretty luxurious for the tyrannical emporor to be sent to an island. For all the self proclaimed greatness and the seeming boldness he turned quiet meek in the retreat to Elba. I find the movie Papillion must be historical and real. And the man, who, mistaken in identity, was cast off to Elba also naturally finding Napoleon there confined he would let the island keep himself. Hoffmann character remarked about the craziness of that man's proposal. The man fashioned an escape and kept off the extremely high island to dodge his way through the jagged rocky waters. The once extremely bold Napoleon sat ineffectually, to meek to escape Elba's  confinement while the daring boldness of the Papillion, who the French must have known through lore about him, as the only one to have ever escape the treacherous waters of Elba, had finally earned him freedom. Maybe in fact Napoleon himself had been hunting Papillion and then in a twist was cast, in like, to the same island, yet the Papillion won freedom. Maybe the Papillion told his own story to the people and nonone was the wiser about it. It was said he was never heard from again. I find the butterfly feminine which is possibly a sexist point of view but, all in all, most likely agree with me about that. They are quite a beautiful transformation. From the somewhat ugly, pudgy, worm-like caterpillar to the vibrant butterfly. From crawling as manner of travel to the freedom of flight. The message of the butterfly, what we can see from watching it, is beauty. And it brings that beauty freely to the world. The world needs a transformation anyway. I am certain Hoffman was, perhaps unaware, playing the role of the exiled Napoleon. Napoleon said "An army marches on its stomach". Also, "Victory belongs to the most perservering." He also said, "Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever." And "Until you spread your wings you'll have no idea how far you can fly." Bonaparte said, "If you want a thing done well do it yourself." And "Impossible is a word found in the dictionary of fools." All of those things were then challenged to him when the Papillion met him on the island and then escaped. When asked by Papillion (McQueen) 'What about escape?' Hoffman said 'Why it is impossible.' So, naturally, the Papillion, who had eluded French forces and Napoleon himself and had been captured once before, was really a man butterfly and it was only fitting that Bonaparte should find defeat and the lousy taste of his own words, or rather the simple fact that he wasn't as great a person as the Papillion when he was face to face with the very man he had spoken so derogatory and degrading about and that he wondered why he wasn't dead yet. That telling moment is when Hoffman exclaimed something like why I think that man is God when Papillion lept from atop the island to freedom. Napoleon, when fighting his enemy, had often said does he think he's God, well he's not God and various like things in his pursuit as Self proclaimed emporor of France. Here, in the year of the butterfly, all the transition of more utopian values and that better world are within reach. We finally see the best victories being won as we iron out the painful wrinkles of history and uphold the ideals we shouldn't have ever lost as human beings. Progress is the focal point and 2021 the firm grounds and foundation to move forward with. So it is good advice to remember don't get too lax, don't let your humanity slip away so that we don't fall into bad habits that lose the ground of the progress we make. Then we won't flirt with change or flirt with growth like a butterfly dances on the wind.