I met my caterpillar friend this morning in Bryant Park, which is this incredible public space directly across the street from our hotel in New York City. I sat down, looked up, and immediately saw this crazy furry monster crawling up the chair next to me. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of shots (all of which were as fuzzy as he was), then sat back down and went to work on my computer. I completely forgot about my new friend, until I saw him at my feet about ten minutes later.
I have always wanted to find a way to calm my initial reaction when I find a bug on me, but as with every other time before I freaked when I felt him crawling up my leg. I politely brushed him off, then moved him farther away from me, only to find him crawling up my table a few minutes later. He made it all the way to the top, and promptly went right for me again, coming up to the edge as though he wanted to jump into my lap. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before…
At this point, I grabbed a leaf and moved him to the ground cover behind me where I could watch him without fear of attack. I was mesmerized by the way his body moved, his five sets of antennae, and his tiny suction-cup feet. Whenever I got too close to him, he immediately stopped moving and pulled his brilliant red head into his yellow body. See Harry in action here:
I loved watching the way he surveyed the scene as he came to the edge of each leaf. He methodically but quickly examined his options, picked his path and moved forward, making the most of his caterpillar time on earth. I was especially surprised to see the strain he put on those leaves and the way they bounced back as such tiny creature shifted his weight to the next one. Truly, all of us, even the smallest living thing, leave a mark on earth with each and every step…
When I mentioned this story to my friend Sharon, she suggested that this experience was not a random accident but a gift from the universe. I could easily spend a lifetime reflecting on this very moment, dissecting each and every second in a million different ways, proposing any number of well-known and richly-detailed symbols to help make sense of it. But for tonight, I simply want to delight in the experience itself, and the account of it here.