Monarchs, not Kings

On butterflies, benches, and our shared humanity

It’s hard to know what to write about when the world feels like it’s on fire, falling apart. Especially when simultaneously, my personal life feels like it’s coming together, with a lot of happiness and growth as of late.

I came across a term for this the other day—hypernormalization. The feeling of, to put it in Emily Amick's words, “what happens when the systems around us are visibly breaking down, but everyone keeps acting like things are fine.”

It’s not unlike what happens when a loved one dies. When my Aunt Michelle passed away about two and a half years ago, I remember my parents received a heartfelt card from their neighbor. The inscription read something like “it’s so unfair when the world around you goes on acting normally while yours has been changed forever.” Those words are some of the most touching I’ve ever read in a sympathy card. Words that felt like my family’s pain was being held and embraced, rather than tip-toed around cautiously.

Last Friday would’ve been my aunt’s 55th birthday. It happened to coincide with my cousin’s (her son’s) graduation, so my family gathered in Bend to honor them both.

It was the first time I'd been back to visit since her funeral, and therefore the first time I got to visit the bench my uncle had memorialized in her honor.

My family gathered at my aunt’s bench, which none of us had had the chance to see yet. Having been under the impression it was located in her favorite nature park near their house, I was surprised to discover it sits in a very public, high trafficked riverfront park instead. A beautiful spot to rest, nonetheless, but more exposed than I had envisioned.

That didn't stop us from taking our time to sit. I returned to her bench before I left town a couple days later, taking a few minutes to sit there and remember her. (I would’ve stayed longer if it weren’t for the blazing, ~80-degree sun making it nearly impossible to perch on the bench.)

Whenever I come across a memorial bench, I always read the inscription, especially when I’m sitting on it. It dawned on me then, whenever we walk by such benches, how often are their occupants the loved ones of the memorialized?

It’s so easy to disguise oneself as a park passerby, enjoying a moment of relaxation on a beckoning park bench. I hadn’t really thought about the inverse experience of being a survivor of the deceased. How easy it is to go about one’s life and not consider the perspective of another—it may look the same on the surface but feel entirely different underneath.

Yesterday I was proud to participate in my first ever protest, joining the thousands-strong-swell of people along Portland’s waterfront to take part in the No Kings movement. When the Hands Off protest occurred in early April, my partner and I happened to be in San Francisco at the time so we couldn’t participate back home. However, we caught the tail end of the march to SF’s capital building that day and it suddenly hit me. I was quickly overcome with emotion, unable to control the sobs that escaped from my chest. Taken aback I was with the direness of our current reality, contrasted with a strong sense of awe. For as scary and threatening as the state of this country is right now, seeing all my fellow citizens standing together in peaceful solidarity like that filled me with hope.

The same emotions threatened to swell up in my throat yesterday afternoon, as I scanned all the different picket signs that people of all ages were touting. Particularly striking were a few that depicted the monarch butterfly as a symbol for migration, a process that is both natural and humane. The monarch is known for its long and harsh migration journey from Mexico to the U.S. every year and is now a near-endangered species, making it a powerful metaphor for immigrants’ rights.

Coincidentally, right before we crossed the bridge to join the protest meeting spot, we walked by concrete steps that were painted to look like a monarch’s wings. They stood out to me because of the special place monarchs have in my heart as a result of an engaging grade school project. Now knowing the strong symbolism they carry, I will look at them with an even more meaningful lens.

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A moment that has stuck with me since that trip to San Francisco happened not at the protest, but on public transportation.

One afternoon we were riding the BART. Tired from a day spent on foot—we walked over 10 miles up and down the hills that day!—I was happy to sit there, relaxing my feet and people watching.

Just then, a ragged-looking man got on the train, very obviously not in his right mind and on drugs of some kind. He stood there yelling somewhat loudly to an imaginary person, as I went into my protective shell and looked away, avoiding eye contact.

After he got right back off at the next stop, I observed a family next to us. Parents of three young children, I overheard the youngest boy ask his mom, “Mom, who was that man talking to?”

The mother very matter-of-factly replied, “No one, honey. It was somebody in his head.”

From my point of view, the parents could’ve easily gotten off the train or moved elsewhere to protect their children from this display, but they simply went about their business like the rest of us. And when faced with the reality of explaining mentally ill people to their impressionable young children, the mother didn’t interject any negative stereotypes. Just a simple, objective, “he was talking to someone imaginary.” No insertion of the subjective, of judgment.

We got off the train shortly after that so I’m not sure if the conversation continued, but it seemed the child was satisfied with his mom’s explanation. I imagined that her answer sufficed because he may have had an imaginary friend himself at one point and could thus relate to the man.

This interaction has stayed with me because of the delicacy of the moment. There was something so hopeful about the interaction of teaching kids about reality while allowing room for empathy. It felt like a model for the rest of us.

I think this comes to mind now because it demonstrates our need to coexist in this world.

My mind drifts back to my aunt’s park bench, and how it made me look at the bench view from an entirely different perspective. From the perspective of missing someone, rather than simply desiring a place to sit.

How often do we take a park bench for granted? We don’t always use them, but we count on them to be there.

People do many different things on benches—talk on the phone, sit in silence, share a sandwich with a friend, chat with a stranger, read a book, bask in the sunlight, take a nap—do we ever bother them? No. We normally let them be, often times not caring so much as to even give them a thought.

When we are seeking a bench spot but see that they’re all taken, we don’t ask someone to move. We either ask if they mind sharing, or wait our turn. Or decide to sit on the grass instead, maybe taking our shoes off and feeling the blades between our toes.

The park bench, then, I think serves as a beautifully simple metaphor for our shared humanity and the right that we all have to exist. Peacefully, just as we are.