[September 2000 journal entry]
Hope for the Flowers is Trina Paulus’ tale about two caterpillars – Stripe and Yellow – has for many years been ‘canonical’ in our family discussions. The tale begins with Stripe doing what all caterpillars do. As soon as he is old enough, Stripe crawls with mounting excitement to the nearest caterpillar pillar. Those pillars -- rows and rows running to the horizon – seem to touch the clouds. Every caterpillar’s life goal? Make it to the top of one of those pillars. The method? Climb or be climbed. The rationale? No one knows or has time to think about that. Stripe quickly gets used to pushing and being pushed, to kicking and being kicked, to stepping on and being stepped on. There is no authentic communication. Only the outsides of the tangled caterpillars touch. From time to time, Stripe sees caterpillars falling to the ground below. At one point part way up the caterpillar pillar, he is muttering to himself -- “What’s at the top? Where are we going?” -- as he crawls over a little yellow caterpillar. Yellow gasps, “What did you say?” Stripe pauses. The more they talk, the less single-minded Stripe becomes. He wonders to himself, “How can I step on someone I’ve just talked to?” Stripe avoids Yellow as much as possible as they continue the climbing life, but one day she is blocking his only way up. He warns, “I guess it’s you or me”, and he steps squarely on her head. Something in the way Yellow looks at him makes Stripe feel awful about himself – “Can getting to the top be worth that?” He crawls off Yellow and whispers, “I’m sorry.” Yellow begins to cry. She suggests, “Let’s go down.” Stripe agrees. So they stop climbing, convinced there must be another way ‘up’. They decide to crawl down the pillar – a hard decision but the beginning of their search for another way of being. The remainder of the story tells how they pass through their existential cocoons into butterflies -- Yellow quickly and with little hesitation; Stripe eventually but only after being lured back for another aborted effort to climb to the top of a caterpillar pillar.
Hope for the Flowers is Trina Paulus’ tale about two caterpillars – Stripe and Yellow – has for many years been ‘canonical’ in our family discussions. The tale begins with Stripe doing what all caterpillars do. As soon as he is old enough, Stripe crawls with mounting excitement to the nearest caterpillar pillar. Those pillars -- rows and rows running to the horizon – seem to touch the clouds. Every caterpillar’s life goal? Make it to the top of one of those pillars. The method? Climb or be climbed. The rationale? No one knows or has time to think about that. Stripe quickly gets used to pushing and being pushed, to kicking and being kicked, to stepping on and being stepped on. There is no authentic communication. Only the outsides of the tangled caterpillars touch. From time to time, Stripe sees caterpillars falling to the ground below. At one point part way up the caterpillar pillar, he is muttering to himself -- “What’s at the top? Where are we going?” -- as he crawls over a little yellow caterpillar. Yellow gasps, “What did you say?” Stripe pauses. The more they talk, the less single-minded Stripe becomes. He wonders to himself, “How can I step on someone I’ve just talked to?” Stripe avoids Yellow as much as possible as they continue the climbing life, but one day she is blocking his only way up. He warns, “I guess it’s you or me”, and he steps squarely on her head. Something in the way Yellow looks at him makes Stripe feel awful about himself – “Can getting to the top be worth that?” He crawls off Yellow and whispers, “I’m sorry.” Yellow begins to cry. She suggests, “Let’s go down.” Stripe agrees. So they stop climbing, convinced there must be another way ‘up’. They decide to crawl down the pillar – a hard decision but the beginning of their search for another way of being. The remainder of the story tells how they pass through their existential cocoons into butterflies -- Yellow quickly and with little hesitation; Stripe eventually but only after being lured back for another aborted effort to climb to the top of a caterpillar pillar.
We have spoken often together as a family about how a single encounter forces Stripe to rethink carefully and radically his values, his goals, his habits . . . to rethink who he wants to be. Stripe and Yellow conclude their only option is to withdraw. We have discussed that it is not so simple for individuals who are resolved to care for the injured and ill, for individuals who are resolved to act consistently with a strong social conscience.