The Summer of the Dragonfly

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a... Sign of What's To Come?

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When I was a boy, I spent many summer afternoons with my diving mask, exploring the pond near my uncle’s house in upstate New York, catching turtles and chasing fish with my bare hands. I would sometimes stop and just watch the dragonflies that always seemed to have some business around the edges of the water. They were exotic and alien and so efficient in their stutter-stop movements, flying fast and halting on a dime, then hovering in place before darting off again in some seemingly random direction.

I haven’t thought much about dragonflies in quite a while. In Arizona, you rarely ever see them. In fact, until a couple of weeks ago, I don’t think I ever saw a single one in the desert in all my years there.

Then one day, as we were packing up and getting ready to leave, I saw a couple of them, playfully doing their little dance above our pool. I was immediately struck by how unusual the sight was.

It felt strangely meaningful.

See, a few years back, my wife came across something that said that when you start to see butterflies, it can signify that a change is coming in your life. I was in my very stodgy Catholic phase at the time, and allergic to looking for interpretative symbolism. But it seemed harmless enough to notice that when we had to make a move or make a big change, they really did seem to show up in unexpected places and in greater quantities than I was accustomed to seeing them. Once, when we found a house that we wanted to buy, we found some butterfly art in the back yard and we both noticed this little “sign.” We wound up getting the place, and moved in a few weeks later.

But dragonflies were not something I had any real reference for.

Still, I kept right on seeing them. For the past few weeks, they keep flying right in front of the car, or lingering around as I would unload our things into the next hotel or AirBnB as we drove across the country.

When we got to the East Coast, we quickly realized that Virginia, the place we thought we were being called to when Jamie got the nudge to “go home,” no longer felt like home at all. My first night here, I felt as though I had walked into some sort of strange, unseen electrical field that was running at an opposite charge to my own. It created a strange, unnerving physical sensation I can only describe as what it might be like if you touched a nine volt battery to your soul. (If you’ve ever touched one to your tongue, you know exactly the feeling I’m talking about — now extend that feeling to your entire body.)

I expected a lot of things when we came back. I expected to struggle to adapt to an environment I thought I’d left behind forever. I expected to feel a strange mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity, since I knew the place had changed a lot in the years since we had left. I expected to struggle to understand how to interact with the people here that I know, both family and friends, as I navigate the landscape of being outside the Catholic bubble they’re all still in, and deal with estrangements and other difficulties that made living a couple thousand miles away so much easier.

But I didn’t expect to feel like I was being physically repulsed by some kind of weird energetic vibe.

On our way across the country, however, we finally took a long-overdue detour through North Carolina. I had spent a little time there in college and had found it beautiful. On a subsequent visit for a wedding about a decade later, that impression held up. For a month or so before we moved back East, I’d been researching it. It looked great on YouTube, but how could we be sure without being there? And we didn’t know anyone there or have any reason to go. Almost as though we were just checking off a box, we decided to take our route through there so we could at least say we’d seen it.

Well, after an absolutely gorgeous drive from Eastern Tennessee through the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina — the video above doesn’t do it justice — we spent a night each in Charlotte and Raleigh.

To my surprise, the whole family loved it there. We liked both cities, but Raleigh easily won out. So much so that I was just taking it all in and didn’t grab any photos. So I stole this one from Unsplash:

For years, Jamie and I have been talking about how the disadvantage of having been so many places in our lives is that there are little bits we like about so many different cities that we wish we could put them all in one place. As we explored Raleigh through the leftovers of Hurricane Debby, we both felt it. It was the vibe we’d been looking for. Simultaneously a city and a smaller-sized town, full of both country charm and upscale shopping and restaurants, with a common architectural style that is exactly what we like, and so damn many trees, it was somehow both cozy and vibrant and full of the right kind of energy. It was clearly a young and growing city, and a great place for families.

It felt like a fusion of those little things we like. A fusion of East and West Coast, North and South, just a sprinkle of almost everything.

When we left, all we could talk about was going back. When we got to Virginia, and I got hit with that weird feeling, the desire grew even stronger. Jamie felt it too. Our kids also thought it was a nice place. My oldest son flat out told me that he preferred it.

So we sat in our new place with just a small amount of our belongings, waiting for the big moving trucks to arrive with the rest, and we faltered.

What if this is the new start we’ve been looking for? We wondered. What if we should just re-route the trucks and go there instead?

It was a scary thought. Blank slates often are. Either way, I’m starting a new business (or resigned to beginning a new career at 46). Jamie is rebuilding her real estate business nearly from scratch as well. It’s true that we have professional connections here in Virginia, but it’s hard to say how much of a leg up they’ll be. But if we stay here to try to find out, we’re likely going to get stuck here. This is too big of a family with too many people in it to just plop down for six months or a year and then go again.

I hinted last week that Virginia might just be a waystation. Well, after deliberating and WTFing for a solid week, my wife and I decided to drive back down to Raleigh. We identified a couple of houses for rent that we liked, and applied. I won’t bore you with the details, but it all came together in about 24-48 hours, and yes, I kept seeing dragonflies the whole time. I mean, flying right up to my car at stoplights or when I pulled over for something, and nowhere else that I could see. Butterflies too.

Suffice to say, we quickly got an approval, and decided to sign. Our lease here in Virginia was flexible, so we had an out. We didn’t have to stay. So on Friday of this week, we’ll be moving to Raleigh instead.

As I went over to the store to pick up some packing tape and a roll of plastic wrap to re-pack the office equipment that I’d just started setting up, I got out of the Jeep and found myself face to face with a particularly big dragonfly. He was just hovering there, a few feet from my face, staring at me. Usually, they dart away immediately. But this one didn’t. He stared at me, and I stared at him, and after a few seconds, satisfied with whatever exchange had just occurred, he flew off, and I went in to buy my supplies.

It felt meaningful again, though. By this point, it had happened so often that it was starting to really amuse me.

I told Jamie about it, and she decided to look up the symbolism. This is what she sent back to me:

Dragonflies can symbolize many things, including:

Transformation

Dragonflies change form throughout their lives, from water-dwelling nymphs to flying adults. This can represent becoming your true self, shedding an old version of yourself, and adapting to change.

Self-realization

Dragonflies can symbolize change that comes from mental and emotional maturity, and understanding the deeper meaning of life.

Connection to nature

Dragonflies' traditional association with water can represent looking beyond the surface and seeing the deeper aspects of life.

Yes, I know, it’s all subjective. Very new-agey. Very woo. But these days, I’m not the stodgy religious zealot I used to be. I prefer now to look for the symbolism in little things, especially when at a moment in my life where I’m not feeling particularly wise. And it’s true that from where I stand, I am facing the need for deep transformation, leaving the past behind, and the self-realization and actualization that comes with finishing the very tumultuous process of healing and maturing that I’ve been going through for the past few years.

Maybe this really is the fresh start I’ve been looking for.

I’m excited and scared and feeling a little crazy, but it’s time for a new and better adventure than the one we’ve been on.

After all, you only live once, and the clock never stops.