A friend had this as her profile picture. It was evidently taken by a fellow Princetonian. My classmates are cool.

Stolen from Bones:

"When the butterfly emerges,

 does the caterpillar cease to exist?"

Flutterbyes

So I realized something random and kind of remarkable today while I was walking to the bus stop. I'm fairly sure that besides the one day I didn't leave my apartment, I have seen at least one butterfly every single day that I have been in Chicago. That has to be some kind of a good omen for my life, right?

I mean, butterflies are pretty remarkable creatures in and of themselves.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.  ~Richard Buckminster Fuller

Think about it...in a span of about a month, these creatures go through a physical (and I suppose mental) transformation that is so powerful that, when everything is said and done, they are unrecognizable as their former selves. Almost every culture throughout history has attributed powers of change to the butterfly, and many believed they represented the soul and all that is good and light. 
And I can totally understand that, because every time I see a butterfly fluttering over trash and broken glass on the sidewalk or dodging cars on the busy highway, there is a small moment of joy in the midst of my hectic day as I stop to say "Hello butterfly."

I think what I'm supposed to take out of this is that no matter where I am, even if it's the dead of winter, I should find something to be my day's butterfly.