The Day I Danced with a Monarch: A Reminder That Nature Still Wins

Yesterday was one of those quietly spectacular days. You know the kind—no big headlines, no grand achievements. Just… light. After what felt like a thousand years of nonstop rain, the sun finally came out. The sky turned that unapologetic blue you only get after a storm, and suddenly, every flower in our yard seemed to shout, “We made it!”

I took a slow walk around the garden, admiring my wife’s green thumb at work. Her plants were showing off—lush, colorful, a little dramatic, if I’m honest. That’s when I heard it. The unmistakable, happy hum of bees. Honeybees.

Now, I haven’t seen them since winter ended, and I was getting anxious. I mean, no bees, no food. So to hear that buzz around a flowering shrub (don’t ask me the name, I’m not the plant whisperer in this marriage) was enough to make me stop and smile like an idiot. They were swarming in harmony, doing their bee thing—pollinating, sipping nectar, carrying the weight of the ecosystem on their fuzzy little legs.

I stood there like a weirdo, talking to them. Out loud. Just me, the bees, and whatever coyotes might have been spying through their dens, thinking, “Yep. He’s finally lost it.”

We let dandelions grow on purpose, you know. They’re the early spring buffet for bees and other pollinators. But every year, folks wage chemical warfare on them because they don’t fit into their manicured lawn aesthetic. Drives me nuts. I’d rather have bees than bare, poisoned grass, thank you very much.

Anyway, as I was walking back inside, already feeling oddly victorious, it happened.

A monarch.

Yes. A monarch butterfly.

Not a swallowtail, not a cabbage white—an honest-to-goodness monarch. Those things are rare now, practically unicorns with wings. It swooped down over a plant, caught in the wind, fluttering like it was on stage. It floated right in front of me, paused as if to say, “Thanks for noticing,” and then zipped away into the sun.

It took my breath away.

Years ago, my wife and I visited a monarch sanctuary in California—trees dripping in orange and black wings, thousands of butterflies clustered like leaves. Seeing that was like watching magic happen in slow motion. And here was this solo flier, a whisper of that memory, right in our backyard.

And for a second, I felt connected to something bigger than pain or diagnoses or whatever else was hanging over me this week. That butterfly reminded me that beauty still shows up. Sometimes it flutters right in your face.

So yeah, the rest of my day went perfectly. How was yours?

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Ever had a quiet moment with nature that made your whole day? Tell me about it in the comments—and if you're the kind who appreciates bees and butterflies over a golf-course lawn, you might want to subscribe. I write for people who get it.