Beautiful Butterfly

A butterfly landed on the walkway near my front door yesterday. It seemed an odd place to stop. There had been some rain just shortly before. The pavement was damp, and there was little sun to warm him. It couldn’t have been a comfortable place to rest, I thought, and I sensed that the butterfly was nearing death.

His delicate wings were stunning, and he displayed them so proudly for two hours before he folded them forever. I picked up his lifeless body gently and moved him off the walkway and into the garden. Within hours, ants began moving him away, tugging him to their underground home. I don’t like to think of them devouring him. I hope instead that they chose to make a pair of curtains from his gorgeous wings, or used them as a fancy tablecloth for their queen.

It's the Pits

My son came home from one of his college classes early yesterday. The instructor had dismissed the students early because several of them — my son included — got into a heated debate about pit bulls and what to do about the “problem.” My son, an avid defender of animals and a proud owner of a pit bull mix, was surprised by the ignorance of his classmates, and disturbed to hear many of them say things like, “If I ever see a pit bull, whether it’s with its owner or not, I will kick it in the head” and “All pit bulls should be rounded up and put down.”

This whole scenario stunned me on several levels. Firstly, I find it hard to believe that the instructor could not control and direct the conversation, but instead chose to simply dismiss the entire class. Aren’t colleges supposed to be the place where discourse happens? Secondly, the class, a Criminal Justice course, is one in which the instructor frequently tells his students not to draw conclusions about police officers or criminals based merely on what they hear in the media. Unfortunately, they (and indeed the instructor himself) did exactly that with what they’ve heard about the pit bull breed. This kind of thinking is no better than people who believe that all police officers are bad because of what some did to Rodney King. Or that all black men are criminals because O. J. Simpson murdered his wife. (Yeah, yeah, not officially.)

Pit bulls aren’t the only dogs that will attack. Dogs, although domesticated, are still animals, and can sometimes behave in ways we don’t understand. A police officer in Fremont, CA was recently attacked by a pack of chihuahuas. France’s former president Jacques Chirac was recently attacked by his poodle. Hopefully cool heads will prevail and no one will start calling for either breed to be banished.

I won’t refute the fact that pit bulls have attacked people in the past. Nor will I assert that these events are not disturbing and horrible. I wouldn’t wish an attack of that kind, by any animal, on anyone. But pit bulls are not inherently mean. They are themselves victims of people who choose to train them to attack. A pit bull is a strong dog. Its build gives it the potential to do serious damage to people and other animals. They seem to be the dog of choice for people who want to have an animal that could truly do some harm, and that’s unfortunate. But should all pit bulls therefore be rounded up and destroyed? Of course not. The problem is with the owners, not with the dogs.

Let’s work on keeping our streets free of drug activity. Let’s focus on enforcing dog licensing laws. Let’s ensure that all animals are given good homes and are treated properly. Let’s start thinking about what the real problems are. And let’s find solutions that eliminate those problems instead of proposing mindless fixes that don’t.

I Hate Love

Valentine’s Day is looming large. Television programs are interrupted with commercials showing men presenting diamond necklaces to beautiful, grateful women. My e-mail box is crammed full of suggestions for Valentine’s gifts, some naughty, some nice. And store shelves are loaded with cards, each offering a ready-made expression of love that will perfectly describe how you feel about your special someone.

But I have a confession to make: My heart doesn’t always go pitter-pat the minute my husband walks into the room. When I go away on business trips, I don’t stay awake at night pining for him. And thoughts of him rarely flutter through my heart when I’m trying to concentrate on something else.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband deeply, and I don’t regret one moment of my four years with him. But my love for him is not defined by fairy tales or Hallmark or Kate Hudson films. Perhaps ours is the kind of love that sounds completely boring to some, but I wouldn’t trade what I feel for my husband for any other definition of love.

Oh, I’ve felt the other kind of “love” in the past. There’ve been men who’ve made me swoon, men I’ve gotten all moony-eyed about, spent hours daydreaming about. I’ve felt the kind of love that exhausted me, love that left me completely drained. I’ve even sought out that kind of love, rejected some perfectly good men who didn’t sweep me completely off my feet, stayed with some perfectly horrible men because they did, and figured it couldn’t possibly be real love unless I felt like I was walking on Cloud 9. Love shouldn’t be like that. Love should make you feel stronger, not make you weak in the knees. Love should allow you opportunities to grow, not keep you feeling like you want to spend every waking moment with that other person. Love should make you feel secure, giving you room to think about other things, not emotionally chain your happiness to one other individual so that you can’t move forward as a unique person.

Love means caring immensely about what happens to your partner. Love means being mindful of that person’s feelings, and taking responsibility for being a good friend above all. Love means being mindful of your own feelings, and being a good friend to yourself. And love can be very quiet. It can tiptoe up to you, sneak glances at you from across the room for ages before you even notice it’s there. It doesn’t have to rush in and bowl you over. In fact, love shouldn’t. Love, if it’s worth having, should demonstrate more respect for you than that.

Nonetheless, on this Valentine’s Day, we’ll demonstrate our happiness to the world in some very traditional ways. He’ll give me chocolates and a card, we’ll go out to dinner, each wearing something red, and we’ll hold hands and bat our eyelashes at each other. We’ll satisfy all onlookers that we’re a couple of lovebirds. And when we’ve done all that, I look forward to going back to just the way we are today — content to be nothing more than truly in love.