the season of monarchs and milestones

This blog turned 20 last week. I've only blogged once in all of 2025 (and while in past years I could point to more frequent activity on my Substack newsletter, I've only updated it six times so far in 2025). Most of my energy outside work and family this year has gone to the podcast, but even before I started working on season two, I just don't have the energy or desire to write much after the past couple of years of work increasingly tapping more and more into that particular reservoir of mental energy (to borrow from one of the folks I interviewed for season 2...you can listen to that episode here).

I've considered what to do to mark this milestone. Do I keep blogging, focus more on the newsletter, or try to keep doing both? Do I keep the blog public as more of an archive of my thoughts over the past 20 years, including marriage, two cross-country moves, grad school, babies, self-employment, day jobs, etc., or do I say 20 years is enough over-sharing and make this blog private moving forward? There's probably already a fully AI version of me based on the nearly 500 published posts here. I know it may sound delusional to even put this out there, but I have half a dozen book/memoir ideas based on categories of writing here over the years (art school, pandemic, and nearly 20 day gigs/jobs, to name a few). At times, I lean more toward fleshing out those ideas instead of adding more to the blog as is. At the end of the day, writing here, or posting anything anywhere, for that matter, is just really different now than it was 15-20 years ago, when folks actually commented on blog posts and people actually discovered and shared cool stuff on Instagram.

While I mull over all of the above a little longer, I thought for my 496th blog post that I'd write about the milkweed and monarch caterpillars-turned-butterflies that took over my heart and soul during the month of October. Butterflies, after all, can symbolize personal growth, change, and rebirth. There is also something hopeful about watching this process unfold, even though nature can sometimes be heartbreakingly brutal. And I have to wonder, did all this happen at a meaningful time, during or before a shift or change of some kind, perhaps gently nudging me to consider my own readiness to move on into the next chapter or phase of this writing journey. 

With that, let me start at the beginning of the month of monarchs timelines. ..

On October 5th, some time after the milkweed I planted several years ago had cycled through going dormant and coming back to life more than once (this past summer spreading out and looking more robust than ever), I noticed FOUR monarch caterpillars chomping away. 

Three days later, I noticed a chrysalis hanging from the underside of the fence trim near the milkweed plant. 

We kept a close eye on both the caterpillars and the chyrsalis (not knowing exactly when the chrysalis had formed, of course), and over the next couple of days, one by one the caterpillars disappeared (they can sometimes crawl up to 40-50 feet to find a suitable place to pupate). On October 10th (my birthday!), I spotted one of the caterpillars about a foot or so away from the chrysalis.

The next day, I spotted it in "J hang" mode.

We knew pupation would likely happen within the next 24 hours. Fortunately, it was the start of a long weekend so we were able to check on it pretty frequently. At about 2:30 pm on Saturday, October 11th, we were lucky enough to be able to observe its transformation.

Here's chrysalis #2 after a little more time forming and hardening:

Meanwhile, we kept a close eye on chrysalis #1 as well, figuring it had been at least a week since it had formed without us noticing. On Friday, October 17th, around midday, I popped outside and noticed it was starting to get translucent (and hence darker, the translucency allowing for the orange and black wings inside to show through).

I checked on it first thing Saturday morning, and it was totally translucent/dark!

I then kept an eye out for the "pleat" at the top, a sign that emergence, or "eclosure", is imminent. Around noon that day I noticed the pleat!

I grabbed a chair and started watching and waiting (mind you, this milkweed plant and fence are in the front of our house, next to our garage, so I'm pretty sure our neighbors think I'm crazy by now). My husband and 17yo were camping, but I texted the 12yo to come out as soon as I saw the butterfly emerging:

Unfortunately, seconds after it started emerging, a tiny spider swooped in and started spinning silk around its back tarsi. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening, the spider so small in comparison to the butterfly, even if it was in a particularly vulnerable state. In hindsight, I wish I'd knocked the little spider out of the way sooner (I am, after all, no nature documentarian...I will intervene!). Long story short, after some quick online research and about a half-hour of carefully wetting and removing the spider silk with a wet, lukewarm q-tip, toothpick, and tweezers, while I wasn't able to totally disentangle the butterfly's tarsi, I was able to remove all the silk I could see (I felt that going any further would risk damaging its delicate legs and claws).

It hung out there for about two and a half hours and I once again totally lucked out and just happened to be going out to the car as it was testing its wings and flew off. I wasn't fast enough to document it but I was pleased and relieved to see if was able to fly, after all.

That experience was mildly traumatic but I had chrysalis #2 to look forward to and now I had the recent experience under my belt in order to react more quickly should a predator of any kind decide to interfere (should I be so lucky as to be able to witness any part of the process again, of course). Every day I checked on the chrysalis and the days were adding up. By day 21, I'd mostly given up hope, assuming that there was something wrong (OE perhaps?) and this butterfly was not going to eclose.

But then on Sunday (day 22!), I noticed what I thought certainly was a bit of darkening/translucency happening. Other family members agreed.

Monday morning I checked on the chrysalis and it was undeniable: this butterfly was going to eclose, after all! But it was Monday and I had a pretty busy day ahead. While I checked on it as often as I could, between meetings and such, I wasn't able to see it emerge, but I'd say the image below is probably within about a half-hour of it doing so:

This was around 2:45 pm. Given they need at least 2-4 hours for their wings to fully expand and dry, while I didn't realize it at the time, it wouldn't be ready to fly until after sunset. And butterflies don't fly at night because it's too cold. 

My 17yo and I, again, not knowing this at that moment, watched it for longer than I'd like to admit given it was a work day. And it seemed to be falling/fumbling a bit more than seemed normal for a new butterfly, so I was worried there was something wrong.

But it made it through the night, roosting in this nearby succulent planter, and flew off sometime Tuesday morning between 9 (when the above photo was taken) and 9:30 am., when I took this photo of it seeming to warm its wings in the morning sun.

I knew I probably wouldn't see it take off so I wished it a wonderful life and safe travels. Watching those two monarchs emerge (one against the odds, the other after a long, quiet wait) felt like the perfect metaphor for this little corner of the internet turning twenty. There’s something about witnessing transformation up close that reminds me how much of life (and writing) is about timing, patience, and learning when to intervene and when to just let things unfold.

I don’t know yet what’s next for this space, whether I’ll keep writing here, shift more to the newsletter, or let the archive stand as its own kind of time capsule. But I do know this blog has been one of the most constant threads through so many phases of my life, allowing me to capture the messy in-betweens and I'm grateful I've had the time and space to keep it going this long, even if increasingly sporadically. And maybe that’s enough for now: to sit with the gratitude, to acknowledge the change, and to see what wants to take shape next.