The Cherub and The Scorpion

A few months ago, I was on my way to a meeting to discuss Different On Purpose. At the time, Different On Purpose was still mostly a collection of ideas. A website that wasn’t finished. Programs that hadn’t launched. Notes scattered across notebooks and laptops and small bistro tables holding cappuccinos and hope.

I just kept having this feeling that something wanted to exist, even though I couldn’t quite see its final shape.

As I was getting into my car, I noticed something lying on the ground near my tire. An upside down sticker. It looked like it had been there for a while. Most people would have walked right past it. Instead, I picked it up. It was a cherub riding a giant scorpion.

Which is a remarkably specific image.

Not a horse. Not a dragon. Not a cloud. A scorpion. And not standing beside it. Riding it.

I stood there staring at it for a minute. Then I did what I apparently do whenever something feels meaningful. I adopted it.

I brought it inside, cleaned it off, and took it into the meeting.

“I don’t know why,” I said, “but I think this is important.”

Which is admittedly a strange thing to say about a sticker from a tattoo parlor randomly placed before your tire.

But something about it wouldn’t let me go.

The cherub.

The scorpion.

The fact that they were together. The fact that neither seemed particularly concerned about the arrangement.

So we started talking about it.

Who are they?

Where are they going?

How did they find each other?

What kind of worlds do they travel through together?

And slowly a story began to emerge. Not all at once. The way stories usually do. Sideways. One conversation. One image. One strange realization at a time.

The funny thing is that I don’t think the cherub and the scorpion are really characters. At least not anymore. Over time they became something else. A way of understanding relationships. A way of understanding transformation. A way of understanding what happens when we stop trying to conquer the parts of ourselves that frighten us.

Because the cherub doesn’t defeat the scorpion. It doesn’t tame it. It doesn’t remove the venom. It doesn’t demand that the scorpion become something safer.

The scorpion remains dangerous. Armored. Protective. Capable of harm.

The cherub knows this and rides it anyway. Not because the danger disappears. Because relationship changes the meaning of what is touched. The presence of the cherub alters the emotional meaning of the thing it encounters. And in return, the scorpion becomes more than danger. More than fear. More than survival.

It becomes protective.

Relational.

Purposeful.

I keep thinking about that lately. About how much of life is spent building armor. Some of that armor is necessary. Some of it saves us. Some of it allows us to survive things we could not otherwise survive. But eventually something strange happens. The armor that protected us starts becoming too small. And we outgrow it.

Scorpions molt. They shed their armor in order to grow. For a brief period they become incredibly vulnerable. Soft before they harden again. Neither what they were nor what they will become. Just exposed. Just becoming.

I think people are like that too. I think many of us spend years molting identities that no longer fit. Expectations. Roles. Stories. Entire futures. Entire belief systems.

Sometimes entire patriarchies.

And if you’ve ever gone through one of those molts, you know how lonely it can feel, even is the loneliness appears right in the middle of being loved.

A few weeks ago I found myself standing in a friend’s backyard at a barbecue. Surrounded by people I care about deeply. People who have known me for years. People who have known my children for years. People who have witnessed grief, joy, heartbreak, reinvention, uncertainty, and growth.

And standing there, I felt something unexpected. I felt profoundly connected and profoundly alone. Both at the same time. For a moment I thought those feelings contradicted each other. Now I don’t think they do. Because loneliness is not always the absence of connection. Sometimes it is the feeling of standing halfway between who you were and who you are becoming. Soft before the armor hardens. Visible before the story is finished.

Maybe that is why relationships matter. They stand by and remain present while we molt. They witness the old armor fall away and stay long enough to meet the person emerging underneath.

None of the people in that backyard rescued me. They couldn’t have. What they did was something much more important. They remained present through a series of impossible transformations.

And maybe that is what belonging actually is — finding people willing to sit close enough to witness the molt.

We do not become less alone because someone rescues us. We become less alone because we slowly become more visible.

By Mandy Parida