“There is a crack, a crack, in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” —Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

Things fall apart. Sometimes they’re the little things: the doorknob to the attic, the light in the refrigerator, the timer on the clothes washer. Sometimes they’re much harder to replace: trunks that support huge canopies of beloved trees in our backyards or muscles that hold up the physical and emotional weight of our own heads.

Over the past month, all these minor and major breakdowns have come to pass on the little patch of planet my husband and I call home. Just after we discovered an irreparable crack in our old ash tree after some strong-winded storms, I began feeling a pain in the back of my head that quickly felled me for almost three weeks. Many doctors’ visits and scary hypotheses later, I’ve learned the reason: Though I try to stand straight and tall like our old tree did for so many years, bending but not breaking in the face of prevailing winds, the efforts have not been adequate. More often than not, I sink into my shoulders, especially at the computer, spending long hours leaning in the same position toward a world reduced to a 15-by-25-inch screen. Our tree swayed too much and too often; I have not swayed enough.

As I recover with the help of physical therapy and “postural reeducation” (a fancy term for breaking decades of sitting, breathing, sleeping, and lying down incorrectly), I have been feeling like Rip Van Winkle, discovering that even in the span of only a few  weeks, much has changed in the garden. The long-awaited joe pye weed blooms are just about to open, while the bee balm that was barely in flower in early July has already exhausted itself into a midsummer mildewed state. The Carolina wren babies have fledged, but the goldfinch families are just getting started. The butterflies we thought would never appear are here in every color and size—tiger swallowtails, monarchs, common buckeyes, fritillaries, clouded sulphurs, red-spotted purples, American ladies, azures, and members of other species who don’t sit still long enough for me to identify them.

Among those willing to pose for my camera, I’ve noticed more wear and tear than I would have expected at this time of year. Like me and the tree, many of these creatures are a little weathered now. Yet even those with only half their wings keep going. Their lives are much shorter than ours; most adult butterflies on this continent live an average of two weeks to a month.

I’m lucky. I get to stick around longer than that, and I don’t have to worry about other animals chomping on me. But this relatively modern comfort that we take for granted is in part responsible for my own tattered state. I sit and write because I can—because I don’t have to fight for survival against predators who want to gobble me whole—and it is both a luxury and a curse.

The butterflies don’t have that choice and can’t head to the urgent care clinic for wing repairs, so they press on until they’ve exhausted themselves. Over the years, their perseverance has inspired me. The animals in the following photo essay aren’t picture-perfect, but their age and experience convey a different kind of beauty—that of creatures who don’t take life for granted or give in to setbacks. Their wings may be torn, but these butterflies are not broken. They are still flying, and still trying. They are survivors.

Postscript: This week, Humane Gardener’s #WeedsNotWeeds series is featured in the Chesapeake Conservancy’s “Trips and Tips.” Be sure to check out this great newsletter, which provides details about fun and informative nature-focused events and activities in the Chesapeake Bay region.