Today I Choose to be Delighted – How to be Delighted

There I was, sitting on my pergola deck on what started as an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, gazing up at my prized Dutchman’s Pipe vine. This magnificent plant had become the crown jewel of my backyard—its heart-shaped leaves cascading in elegant waves, its unusual flowers adding an air of botanical sophistication never failed to teach me how to be delighted. But something was wrong with my beautiful vine today.

A strange, dark clump marred the perfect symmetry of leaves and flowers. From my deck chair, it looked like some kind of blight or disease had taken hold. My heart sank a little as I rose to investigate, already mentally calculating the cost of treatments or, worse, replacement.

What I discovered up close was perhaps the ugliest collection of creatures I’d ever encountered in my garden.

The Unwelcome Discovery

Clustered together in a tight, writhing mass were caterpillars that could only be described as nature’s mistake. Dark, spiny, and grotesque, they moved with an almost deliberate sluggishness that made my skin crawl. These weren’t the cute, fuzzy caterpillars from children’s books, although they were equally hungry. These were alien-looking creatures that seemed designed to repel rather than charm.

My first instinct was to grab the garden hose and blast them into oblivion. After all, they were clearly destroying my gorgeous plant. But something—maybe curiosity, maybe a reluctance to act too hastily—made me pause. Instead of reaching for pest control, I reached for my phone and started researching.

The internet revealed the truth: these were Swallowtail caterpillars, and they had chosen my Dutchman’s Pipe as their exclusive dining hall and nursery.

The Art of Patient Watching

What followed was a week of the most unexpected entertainment. Each morning with my coffee, and each evening with my wine, I found myself drawn to watch these “horrible little creatures” as they systematically consumed my beautiful plant.

They were thorough, I’ll give them that. Every leaf, every flower, every tender shoot—nothing escaped their relentless appetite. Day by day, my prize vine transformed from lush abundance to stripped stems. It was like watching a slow-motion natural disaster, except I was the one who had chosen to let it happen.

There’s something mesmerizing about watching nature work when you’re not trying to control the outcome. These caterpillars grew visibly larger with each passing day, their bodies stretching and expanding as they converted my plant into their own substance. What had started as pencil-thin creatures soon became thumb-sized eating machines.

The transformation was remarkable in its methodical progression. First, they devoured the tender new growth at the tips of each vine. Then they moved to the mature leaves, working their way systematically from the edges inward, leaving behind a delicate lacework of veins before consuming even those. The flowers—those distinctive pipe-shaped blooms I had so carefully nurtured—disappeared as if they had never existed. They literally left evidence of their perfidy in the shape of catepillar poop on the deck!

Each day brought new evidence of their industry. I found myself checking on them multiple times, drawn by a fascination I couldn’t quite explain. There was something almost choreographed about their movements, a purposefulness that spoke to an ancient wisdom I was only beginning to appreciate.

My neighbors thought I’d lost my mind. “Susie,” they’d say, “why don’t you just get rid of them?” But I was invested now in seeing how this story would end. Something about their complete dedication to their task, their utter absorption in the business of transformation, felt important in a way I couldn’t articulate.

The Great Disappearance

Then one morning, they were simply gone.

Not gradually fewer—completely vanished. Where days before there had been a writhing mass of botanical destruction, now there was only my sad, bare vine and an odd sort of silence in the garden.

This launched my great chrysalis hunt. Armed with determination and reading glasses, I searched every inch of my yard. Under deck railings, behind flower pots, in the garden shed, around the fence posts—nothing. These creatures had to be somewhere, transforming into whatever they were meant to become, but they had hidden themselves beyond my detective skills.

I became obsessed with the search. I looked up at tree branches, down in mulch beds, inside the coiled garden hose. I examined every shadowy corner where a chrysalis might hang, every protected alcove where transformation might be quietly taking place. My husband found me one morning, flashlight in hand, peering into the spaces behind our outdoor furniture.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Magic,” I replied, and I meant it.

The not-knowing became its own form of suspense. Somewhere in my yard, in spaces I couldn’t find or perhaps hadn’t thought to look, one of nature’s most remarkable transformations was taking place. The ugly caterpillars were dissolving and rebuilding themselves into something entirely different, following an ancient blueprint I could barely comprehend.

Weeks passed. My poor Dutchman’s Pipe began the slow work of recovery, sending out tentative new shoots. The bare stems started to show signs of green, small leaves unfurling with what seemed like cautious optimism. I had almost forgotten about my temporary garden guests when it happened.

The Surprise Finale

I stepped onto my deck one morning and stopped short. My backyard had been transformed overnight into something magical—dozens of yellow and black butterflies danced through the air like living confetti. Swallowtails, magnificent and graceful, fluttered from flower to flower with a joy that seemed to make the whole garden shimmer.

The entire adventure was just this unexpected delight.

Those ugly caterpillars that had stripped my plant bare, that had disappeared without a trace, had been quietly working their magic somewhere beyond my sight. All my watching and waiting, all my patient acceptance of destruction, had led to this moment of pure enchantment.

Letting Delight Find You

This experience taught me something profound about the nature of joy and wonder. We spend so much energy trying to manufacture delight—planning perfect moments, arranging ideal circumstances, controlling every variable to ensure our happiness. But true delight often comes disguised as something entirely different.

It comes as an interruption to our carefully tended gardens.

It appears in forms we don’t recognize and might even find repulsive.

It asks us to be patient with processes we don’t understand and can’t control.

Those caterpillars taught me about receptivity—about being open to charm and wonder even when they don’t arrive in the packaging we expect. Sometimes the most profound pleasure comes from watching ugly things do their necessary work, trusting that transformation is happening even when we can’t see it.

The Tuesday Afternoon Realness

There’s something beautifully ordinary about finding delight in unexpected places on a random Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t a planned moment of mindfulness or a scheduled gratitude practice. It was simply what happened when I chose curiosity over control, patience over pest spray, and trust over the need to manage every outcome in my garden.

This kind of wonder doesn’t require special circumstances or perfect conditions. It doesn’t need exotic locations or expensive equipment. It just needs us to be present to what’s actually happening instead of what we think should be happening. Sometimes our greatest joy comes not from getting what we want, but from staying open to what we don’t expect.

The butterflies have moved on now, as butterflies do. My Dutchman’s Pipe has fully recovered and is more beautiful than ever, its leaves full and glossy in the afternoon sun. But I carry that morning with me—the memory of stepping into enchantment I never could have planned or predicted.

I think about this experience often when life presents me with situations that initially disappoint or disturb me. When plans fall through, when unexpected challenges arise, when something I value seems to be under attack—I try to remember the caterpillars. Sometimes what looks like destruction is actually preparation. Sometimes what appears ugly is working toward beauty we can’t yet imagine.

Cultivating Receptive Wonder

Now when I sit on my pergola deck, I practice a different kind of awareness. Instead of just admiring what’s already beautiful, I look for the strange clumps, the unexpected visitors, the things that don’t immediately please the eye but might be working their own quiet magic.

Delight, I’ve learned, is less about creating perfect moments and more about recognizing the extraordinary that’s already unfolding around us. It’s about staying open to surprise, even when surprise comes in forms that initially disappoint or disturb us.

Sometimes the most beautiful transformations require us to let go of our need to understand or control the process. Sometimes we have to watch ugly things consume what we thought was precious, trusting that something even more wonderful is being born from what appears to be destruction.

Today I choose to be delighted not by forcing joy into my day, but by staying receptive to the moments when joy finds me. In the patience required for transformation, in the surprise of unexpected beauty, in the simple act of watching what wants to unfold.

This choice—isn’t about maintaining constant happiness or denying difficult realities. It’s about staying curious rather than judgmental, patient rather than controlling, open rather than closed. It’s about trusting that even the ugliest caterpillars carry the potential for wings.

I’ve learned that delight is less of an emotion and more of a posture—a way of holding ourselves in relationship to the world that allows for surprise, wonder, and the possibility that what seems wrong might actually be wonderfully right. It’s the difference between demanding that life meet our expectations and remaining available to the magic life is already offering.

The garden is full of mysteries working themselves out in their own time. And there is such sweet delight in letting them. In watching without interfering, in trusting without understanding, in staying open to the enchantment that comes disguised as something else entirely.

Some days I still catch myself trying to manage outcomes, trying to force delight into forms I recognize and can control. But then I remember the morning of the butterflies, the weeks of patient watching, the ugliness that became beauty when I wasn’t looking. And I choose again to be delighted—not by what I can arrange, but by what wants to unfold.