Simple Things

I forgot how much I enjoy simple things.

Like butterflies.

I love butterflies. To be fair, I love anything with fantasy-esque wings, so the attraction includes angels and fairies as well, but I really really love butterflies.

It just so happened, so does my friend. So, this past hung-over Saturday, with both of us feeling the effects of a few Tom Collins's the night before, we decided to head on over to the local Butterfly Conservatory.

Lame? Maybe. But we had an awesome time.

The conservatory itself is comprised of a museum aspect, where bugs are pinned with descriptors beside them, along with this strange exhibit about seeds that I never really understood and didn't much bother to read. And also, a live butterfly sanctuary type place, which is amazing. Of course, since butterflies are delicate, it's heated to about the temperature and relative humidity of a tropical sauna, but it's still awesome.

There are butterflies of dozens of types/shapes/colours and sizes. Finches that were just way too cute for words, turtles, koi fish, a waterfall, mist, sun, beautiful plants. We got to watch butterflies that had just pulled themselves out of their chrysalids drying out in the sun. A butterfly landed on my foot and tried to eat my toe-nail polish!

They flutter around, eat their fruit, try and scare you with their owl-eye spots, generally being beautiful and ephemeral and not caring about all of the people wandering around taking pictures. They're world is misty and bright and fractured in a way that makes me dizzy just seeing a picture of how a butterfly sees.

We walked through the conservatory twice, breaking out in the airconditining only long enough to mop up the sweat and breathe without the desire for a snorkel mask.

It was a devastatingly simple experience. But it was FABULOUS.

Finding joy in simple things? I declare you rediscovered.