  in college, my friend and i were invited to see a production of Into the Woods at the local institute of music. we were to meet our friends (who held the tickets) before the production in the lobby of the theater .
that's where we first saw her. at first glance there was nothing particularly significant about this young woman. she had close-cut blonde hair, wore a brown skirt and matching blouse, had a faint scar on the left side of her face. but, it was what she wore in her hair that marked her. above her left temple, fastened with a bobby pin onto the fading edge of her trendy, parted hair she wore a small butterfly...a monarch so delicate and fragile it appeared as though it might, at any moment, lift from her scalp and take to the air. she stood in the lobby, across from us, patiently waiting and looking out the window into the sun.
her arms folding and unfolding, her skirt casually clinging to her hips. she was the first butterfly girl...the kind of girl that seemed to light upon a scene only momentarily as she sucked the sweet nectar of life from wherever she was and then fluttered away to some other flower. she stood in that lobby, the sun through the window lit her hair, and we were awestruck. and as though she had landed for only a moment, she soon disappeared into the darkness of the theater and we lost her forever into the blinding lightlessness of those rows of seats.
from then on we have had the term "butterfly girl" to use on the rare, very rare, occassions when we see a girl so beautiful and precious that it is as though she is made of air itself. the kind of girl that sort of just floats onto a scene, her brilliant colors illuminating the landscape, her delicate wings barely pulsing against the current of the breeze.
the kind of girl that lands only momentarily on an otherwise inconspicuous flower and then lifts to the sky, fluttering in seemingly chaotic patterns so beautiful you want to catch her and hold her and make her promises that you can bring her every flower she will ever need. the kind of girl you have in your presence for but a moment, yet for which you are forever grateful for having just been able to glimpse at her splendid, splendid wings. 
