When I was seven, I had my hair cut short. I looked at my chopped hair in the mirror and was delighted: I didn’t recognize myself, and I was sure no one else would, either. Convinced my shyness had fallen to the floor along with my hair, I was hoping I could start the new school year as a different person, dazzling and popular. But when a classmate called me by name on the first day, I was disappointed.
By the time I left college and became a naturalist, I knew that change was slow and difficult. At thirty I felt stuck, as if my life had stiffened around me, and for some reason, perhaps unconscious at the time, I began to get interested in insect metamorphosis.
