Flutter to the skies

Before Amy and I flew home together Sunday, March 6, to spend our final days in Tennessee before making the final move to Lafayette March 11, I had a moment of clarity.

I spent most days at our apartment while Amy was at work. My car was in Tennessee, so I had no real way to go about town other than when our realtor, Arla, would so graciously take me out to lunch.

There was, however, a large movie theater up the street, so on Thursday, March 3, I decided to go see a movie, "The King's Speech," which was fantastic and certainly worthy of the Best Picture Oscar it received.

For the walk, I popped my headphones in and took off in the afternoon for a solo outing at the theater. I listened to a song called "Butterfly Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)" by a-ha, one of my favorite bands of all time. "Butterfly" had only recently been released, and the song is the only new track on a-ha's latest greatest hits compilation, created to mark a-ha's 25th anniversary and the band's retirement.

It was a bright, sunny day, but there was a great breeze. After the movie as I walked back to the apartment, I once again set off listening to "Butterfly" with Morten Harket singing, "Butterfly, butterfly, flying into the wind, you can be sure of it, that's no place to begin, overthinking every little thing, acknowledge the bell you can't unring."

Morten Harket's melancholy voice always draws me into some other dimension. I found some new connection, though, between a-ha's "last hurrah" and my final days in Tennessee, where I would say goodbye to Unicoi County and The Erwin Record.

I could see a group of birds on the power lines up ahead – the sporadic remains of winter's massive flocks of starlings, no doubt, but closer to me were two birds separated from the flock. They fluttered and danced about, and I got this wonderful feeling that it was a sign about me and Amy and our move to a city where we knew not a single soul and where we would begin our life anew. I paused and watched those little birds for a moment. Was their song for me?

"You don't have to turn something in, stay with it through thick and thin," Morten continued to sing in my ears. "Butterfly, begin. Butterfly, butterfly. Tomorrow there will come a time in the morning, you will find a way to begin."

It had been hard for me to make the move. I was the one who said, "Let's do it!" -- even though I didn't know if I could. Could I leave everyone I know and love behind? Could I leave behind the newspaper that I loved so much?

Listening to Morten sing and watching those birds dance on that wire, I suddenly had a calm and wonderful feeling. I could spread my wings and find a new home in Lafayette. Here Amy and I would start a new life, one that could be more exciting and adventurous and beautiful than we ever imagined.

"Tomorrow, there will be a sign from within ... Butterfly, butterfly."