I was very excited, at the beginning of this year, to welcome 2012. February would usher in the Year of the Dragon, an auspicious year, a year of power and dynamism. Having been born in a dragon year, I gleefully anticipated doubly good fortune with health, wealth, and a book deal raining down from the heavens.

When I was a little girl, I loved searching for caterpillars on the milkweed plants that grew in abundance around our house. I would pluck one from the underside of a leaf and place it in my hand, stroking its smooth body with a tentative finger, carefully carrying it home in cupped hands to be re-homed in a mayonnaise jar, along with a stick and some leaves