The butterflies arriving all at once: did that happen in a single day, or is that how your memory compressed it?
AFTERNOON SUN
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The butterflies arriving all at once: did that happen in a single day, or is that how your memory compressed it?
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When I was a kid, the sun was different. It had a different glow. I’m sure of it, although I can’t remember exactly when its hue changed.
Afternoons were yellower, sunsets more orange.
I have pictures etched into my mind of the park where we used to play ball. It wasn’t always soccer. Even the bare earth where the grass no longer grew was lighter.
I also remember rainy days, when we would go out and sail our little paper boats through the puddles, but strangely enough, those days weren’t gray.
When did those gray days begin?
I remember there was a day when the butterflies arrived. All at once. They didn’t come little by little. The yellow ones, the white ones, the “monito” butterflies, larger than the others, and the lemon-tree butterflies, enormous and so difficult to see and catch.
It was the beginning of the happiest time of the year. They became part of the landscape of the park, which, strangely enough, had changed too.
On that, several of us agree: the size of the park.
The difference is remarkable. That park was enormous. It had everything: huge changes in elevation, trees with unreachable crowns, and such a vast expanse that reaching the far end was an adventure that left you tingling.
Riding our bikes all the way to that far end! Looking around to make sure no one saw us going that far…
Coming back to see it a few decades later should make me happy. But no. It makes me indignant to see how small it is now. The trees are ordinary, like any other trees. They aren’t enormous anymore, the way they used to be. The park isn’t that big. I walk all the way to the end, and nothing happens.
I was saying that the butterflies announced the beginning of the happiest time of the year. The warmth arrived, the days grew longer, and there were nights when the neighbors stayed out late on the sidewalks, watching us play hide-and-seek. The mothers would come out one by one, shouting for us to come in for dinner, because the whole block was much bigger too. And that was when the negotiations began.
—Just a little longer, maaam.
—NO. Come on, it’s late.
—But the other kids are allowed to stay. Just a little longer.
—All right. Ten more minutes, but don’t make me come looking for you again.
And so the mothers and grandmothers would gradually appear in the doorways along the block, calling us home, until only a few friends remained and we all left the street to go eat.
You might think I live in my memories. That nostalgia makes us believe the past was better, and that this distortion of perception is simply a natural thing.
How foolish.
Even Terri, my dog, was enormous. And today, in the photographs, he looks tiny next to my old man.
No one will convince me otherwise. The sun was yellower back then.
Thoughts
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You mention the lemon-tree butterflies being hard to catch. Did you actually catch one, or did they always stay out of reach?
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That whole bit about the mothers and grandmothers calling everyone in for dinner: god, that really is the sound of it, isn't it.
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The butterflies arriving all at once: did that happen in a single day, or is that how your memory compressed it?
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When you went back and saw how small it all was, were you grieving something, or was it more complicated than that?
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did you and your friends ever actually get caught at the far end of the park, or was the looking-around part the only scary thing?
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When I was a kid, the sun was different. It had a different glow. I’m sure of it, although I can’t remember exactly when its hue changed.