Yesterday, upon leaving my new house to celebrate the Lunar New Year, on its Eve, I stopped to look and see if the guardian moth was still dead on my front door’s frame. Two days ago I had noticed it clinging on to the brick work. I had liked it there.
But when I found it to not be there, I panicked a little. I told myself that I should have collected it earlier, and it reinforced my New Year’s belief in keeping steady to the motto : “A stitch in time, saves nine.” But the entire reason I left it there was that I liked it guarding my new home. And then, it was gone on the eve of the new year!
Perhaps it was flying away to report to a larger jade god moth about our household.
With a bit of forlorn guilt and dread I glanced around the brick work of the front window. Just in case.
And there it was, sitting now on my window frame. Then it was alive! It just had moved, with a jolted upright, broken, fluttering wing. DId that mean it had been dying for two days?
Referring to why it had moved from the doorway, my housemate said, ”Perhaps it was cold!”
So I took it with us to the New Year Eve celebration. I figured better to be warm while you are dying, than cold.
After the warmth of fire crackers humming in my ears, laughter, and sea creatures wrapped around sugar cane in my belly, I returned home, with the further humming of the moth’s broken wing, still active.
Midnight came, I ran out of our new front doorway, into the rain washing the street, my socks became steeped like tea in the puddles. And then, I entered my own doorway just after midnight. This year I will bring my own self luck.
I lit my lamp and placed the moth on my bedside table. It crawled to face the light. I turned the jar so it would face away from the lamp to check and see if it were true, that it wanted the light. And it was so. In its slow dying gait, it rotated itself, slipping on the glass.
And so, I woke late this New Year’s morning. I found last year’s moth no longer active in its body.
It had gone.
With its end, I wanted to thank it for making these days beautiful, for bringing even more poignancy to this New Year.
chúc mừng năm mới!
Oh goodness. If you have ever wondered why I love this woman so much, here is one answer (of millions).
