Of Metamorphic Potential

The sun beamed on my face as sweat mixed with hair grease burned the side of my eyes. Or maybe it was the smell of freshly laid tar that sat on top of Abu’s storage extension.

Abu had told me not to go outside because all I wore were sandals and even that was hard to get me in. I knew it wasn’t the sandals, though. Momma didn’t want me getting darker and I heard her and Abu fight about it everytime I went out for long periods. But along with the call of the cicadas, an image burned my eyes and I craved to see it again.

Two days before I was banned from outside, I was hanging clothes against the laundry line in our backyard. Our backyard was dry and Abu refused to plant, invest, or wack any weeds. Most kids in the neighborhood had a sandbox and a swing set. Heck, even the Goldstiens' next door had a gazebo and horseshoes. I’d never been invited over but the hole in our chestnut fence allowed me a look into their world. But in our backyard, all that grew were wild sunflowers — sunflowers that overlooked the Goldstiens' horseshoes. I was on laundry duty. I placed the long blankets that were too big for our stackable drier on the line and noticed an oval shape shadow cast onto the blanket coming from the direction of the sunflower.

I looked over to the sunflower to make sure it wasn’t some alien life form that would make its way towards my window which faced the backyard. On the sunflowers long leafy arms, I saw a nest, but not a nest like the one that was in the front of the house next to the Dish Network satellite… it was closed and sealed like a taco.

Before I could reach for it, Momma had come home and I could hear her calling my name. I crawled in from my bedroom window like Abu told me, so Momma wouldn’t get mad at me for being in the sun. I forgot about the strange sunflower taco for the rest of the weekend.

When I got to school come Monday morning, Miss Katherine said that we were gonna go over meta-ha-ha mortises. Yea, that's it Meta-ha-ha morfistises. Miss Katherine was my favorite teacher. She moved to the Madison district from Texas. She left her fiancé and found out he was cheating, I think it was personally a good idea, considering her biological clock was ticking. Miss Katherine and I spent a lot of time after school when Abu would forget to pick me up and so she invested time in me and pitched her problems. I didn’t mind. Miss Katherine always had snacks in her cabinet and if I listened and stayed long enough she would offer me a snack while I listened.

Miss Katherine dimmed the lights and rolled over the VHS player. The classic National Geographic Vegas gold frame appeared out of the darkness. This was gonna be good, I thought, as the whole class crowded the carpet. Metamorphosis is the occurrence that happens to every caterpillar. A caterpillar forgoes great struggles and then arises a beautiful piece of artwork…We humans too go through metaphoric change… The film cut and Miss Katherine turned on the lights… Before anything else could be said, it was recess. I spent all recess thinking how naive I was to think the strange taco was a taco! I was so naive for seven. Miss Katherine taught me the meaning of naive. She said most trusting women were.

I couldn’t wait to go home and check on the cocoon. I rushed into the backyard. There it was a cocoon! “Hey there, so you have a couple of weeks. I hope you are enjoying your time here… Don’t worry if you would like to stay longer. It's okay. Take all the time you need. There is no need to rush or be naive.” I heard Momma's car pull into the driveway and I rushed into my bedroom window. I stood in front of my mirror. “Wow. If this what I look like when I’m in the early stages of metamorphosis, I can’t wait to see what I'll look like later.” I laid on my bed, wrapped myself in my sheets, and closed my eyes. I must have been super tired, since I slept until the next day and I was hungry, but first I jumped in front of the mirror to see any changes. There were none. I ran to the kitchen, borrowed a chair, and grabbed the cereal off the shelf. Momma came over and asked if I was okay since I didn’t eat dinner. I said, “Yeah, I'm just going through my phases.”

My momma nodded over her Reader's Digest and said, “Well, you let me know when you start bleeding.”

Bleeding? Was I going to be wounded? I quickly finished up and got ready. I couldn’t miss the bus to school. I had so many questions for Miss Katherine.

Miss Katherine and I spent that afternoon together. Abu was running late once more but it gave me more time to talk to Miss Katherine about metaphors. “So, Miss Katherine, how long does this metamorphosis take 'til it's done?” I asked, as I held my juice box with my pinky out mimicking Miss Katherine with her coffee mug.

"About a week to 18 days once their cocoon is made."

“Wow, fascinating, and how long do you think for a human?”

Miss Katherine laughed and Abu Ji pulled into the school parking lot. I ran to the van and waved goodbye.

That night I plotted. “Okay, I've got about ten days to get ready,” I thought. I decided I was going to only listen to rainforest sounds on my TV for the next ten days to help me prepare and I added pop tarts to Momma's grocery list to keep me stacked on essential nourishment during this important time.

Day nine rolled and I was certain that this was my last night ever being who I was. I took one last look in the mirror and waved goodbye. “Goodbye, dark skin. Goodbye, red-brown hair. Goodbye, buck teeth!” I crawled into bed assuming that the following morning, I’d be in my prime!

The sun beamed on my face as sweat mixed with hair grease burned the side of my eyes. Or maybe it was the smell of freshly laid tar that sat on top of Abu’s storage extension. I laid on the floor of the open storage unit, crying, with pop tart wrappers forming a crown around my head. What did I do wrong? I was supposed to wake up beautiful. I was supposed to not be dark anymore so Momma wouldn’t get mad and maybe I’d lose my buck teeth so Abu would stop calling me a rabbit. But there I laid, naive and covered in halal pop tart wrappers, crying.

Abu came outside and found me lying down. He asked what was wrong and all I could do was cry. No words, no justification could explain the discontent I felt. So I grabbed his hand and walked through our weed invested non-sandbox-nor-gazebo-having backyard to the root of my dismay. We reached the sunflower and I pointed. The cocoon was empty and I cried even more. “It left. I was supposed to become different, too, Abu. I was supposed to evolve into a butterfly.”

Abu held me close and asked, “Evolve? Evolve into what Jamila?”

My father was a loving man but between his over-exaggerated body language and thick desi accent, it always made me feel like I was standing before a judge.

“I was suppose to become something beautiful. I didn’t wanna be dark anymore. I wanted to have blonde hair like Miss Katherine and the other girls in class. I just wanted to be special,” I cried.

My father picked me up and carried me into the kitchen. He sat me on top of the table. “You are more beautiful than any butterfly in this world. Butterflies come by the dozen and so many look alike. But I only have one Jamila… There is only one of you, nah.” I nodded in agreement. “You won’t always look the same, but you will always feel the same. Changing your looks won’t help you end your problems… One Jamila and only Jamila can truly love Jamila for being Jamila.” I accepted those words from my father along with rejecting his offering of a pop tart for my tears.

The next morning, I sat in the dining room waiting for Abu to make his once a week traditional breakfast for me. I sat and awaited my usual chapati and lassi. Abu came into the dining room wearing wings and placed my plate in front of me. My chapati was shaped like a butterfly. Abu sat down next to me and pretended as if nothing was abnormal. He flipped the pages of his newspaper and then asked, "Butterfly (Titali), can you pass the butter?”

I ignored his request and kept eating. He lowered his paper and then asked again “Titali, butter please.”

I slide the butter but said, "My name is Jamila. I’m not a titali but I am Jamila."

Abu smiled and continued to read his paper. I had learned in those 18 days that it would be naive not to be yourself.