Lessons From a Spider's Apocalypse

I’m sixteen years old, lying half in, half out of my sleeping bag on the dock at our family’s cottage on Marble Lake in Quincy, Michigan. By the glow of a July full moon, an orb-weaving spider is connecting one of the dock posts to the rough wooden edge of a plank with a diagonally dropped silken strand, on her way to filling in the space with that familiar spoked wheel design the night’s gnats can’t resist. I’m lucky enough to catch this one-arachnid show from just after the overture, and don’t plan to budge until she’s settled into the sticky spiraled center, upside down and patiently waiting for dinner to arrive (you do stuff like this when you’re sixteen, because you’re romantic and unemployed and on vacation with your parents). I’m also grateful to not roll around much when I sleep; a night spent on the dock of a marble quarry-turned-lake can be a rather wet affair if you’re prone to acting out those flying dreams you have.

It’s one of the most cherished memories from my youth, watching with unbridled curiosity and gathering wide-eyed respect the painstaking process of such an effort from start to finish, knowing that by the first lights of dawn most of what she spun would be shredded and torn, and she’d have to make a new one for her next meal. I have never worked so hard to put food in my belly; I doubt I ever shall.

In the past year’s more or less daily walks, I’ve clumsily barreled through at least a dozen of these gossamer creations, taking a few of them full on the face like a mask, blinking madly to disentangle my eyelashes from the gluey threads that crisscrossed my face. Always regretting it, always wincing because I know what it took to construct those meal-catchers. I don’t know if the web’s architect was dragged along for the rest of my steps or let go to save herself, grumbling at my overlarge thoughtlessness. I only recall deep regret that had I been more attentive, we all might have come through that leg of the morning’s journey with both of our universes intact and unbothered. If spiders use profanity, the air across the field is thick with it when I’m out and about, guaranteed.

The topic of impermanence has come up a lot in my conversations with Patrick lately, and it covers considerable ground between the sublime and the ridiculous. I suppose we’re trying to make sense of the growing whack-a-mole dangers and catastrophes continuously bubbling their way through our daily lives (sometimes it’s just not possible to ignore the news) and find even a modicum of consolation that both pleasure and pain will exhaust themselves with cyclical regularity. The trick is where we choose to place our philosophical starting point (so far, that’s still a moving target. No “once and for all” yet). We’re both learning to shift our outlook toward the more optimistic, with slowly plodding results. It’s just so hard to trust your current vantage point when threats are flung at you fast and thick from every direction.

And then we see the fields strewn with webs of all manner and style—the spoked wheel ones that are sagging with dew but still intact (there’s a lesson for ya); others resemble gauzey fairy hammocks and don’t appear to have ensnared a single stray or distracted mosquito, not one, in the dark expanse of night. Small and humble, big as Thanksgiving serving platters, snagged on a nearby iron weed stalk, it makes no difference. As the sun rises and sends its shafts of light down through them all, it’s nothing but enchantment and other-worldliness. We can’t look away and so we don’t. We know most of these creations and their owners will be gone for good while we go about chopping kale for our evening salad or sweeping leaves from the front porch. It’s easy to forget they’re out there, these little relatives of ours, setting their tiny legs and instincts to spinning another one from scratch. Again. How they don’t explode in anger and frustration I’ll never know.

And that’s the difference between spiders and me. But if they’re still willing to get up tomorrow and teach me, the least I can do is show up for class.

The Last Twenty Years

It started off blue
September sky, nothing wrong
Familiar Tuesday.

Good souls unaware
One hundred two minutes pass
Plans now turned to dust.

Screams become silence
The living calling loved ones
Getting kids from school.

Speeches, tributes, songs
Long lines for blood, rescue dogs
Churches sending socks.

The phones keep ringing
Offers of help unending
Put “helpless” on hold.

Maintain your resolve
Keep donating blood, money
The Longest War starts.

Numbness marks our days
We stumble forward, trying
Grasping hands in hope.

Three, four years go by
Too many flag-draped coffins
Not enough closure.

That’s how it would be
(Though we couldn’t see it then)
For sixteen more years.

We keep on going
Electing and protesting
Taking kids to school.

Voices get louder
Drown out calls for unity
And still some will hope.

Glimmers of promise
Lace our days, hold off despair
Weddings, reunions.

We keep waking up
We try on a new “normal”
And it seems to fit.

Here, deep in our hearts
A steady persistent truth
We want to go on.

Slog through the Virus
Needless preventable deaths
A year without hugs.

What we couldn’t see
Twenty years ago, is clear
Painfully clear now.

If we’re to move on
We must be willing to heal
To forgive. To love.

In our tired hands
The promise of what’s to be
The next twenty years…

Helpers

A rolling vertical pelt of rudbeckia and jewelweed rims the creek’s edge all through the meadow, marking where the mower decided “tamed” should end and “left to its own wild business” continue untouched and unbridled. Everywhere I look is a sea of late summer green dotted generously with yellow blooms that resemble fallen stars (rudbeckia) and tiny delicate princesses’ slippers (jewelweed). Occasionally a surprise cluster of orange jewelweed pushes its golden sisters aside, wedging in to be noticed.

Up until last Friday, I hadn’t walked for five days and was feeling sluggish, pitiful and stale. I don’t lean toward an addictive personality, but if I did, my drug of choice would be these size 6 1/2 feet of mine connecting rhythmically with the soft soil of the paths we keep tending across the land. My raggedy soul is better for it and tells me so in the middle of management meetings when the discussion grows tense yet I remain calm and gentle. Without those daily walks, I fray at the edges and leave a usually-vigilant internal editor in the dust. And while I tried to convince myself I’m sturdy enough to head out no matter what the weather, the heat and humidity of the past week pushed me back indoors where I settled for a slimmed down yoga routine and free weights to at least salve my fitness conscience. The kittens joined in and a good time was had by all.

Now, on a late Friday afternoon, I’m stretched out flat on my stomach with a blanket beneath me in the shade of the Old Man sycamore by the bend in the creek. The fingers of my right hand absentmindedly comb the cool thin grass while my other hand grasps a pen, shaping images into sentences. I’d been up since 7:00a.m. making tray upon tray of granola for Saturday’s market—a job that requires continuous standing, bending, lifting—and for the first time in seven hours, I’m silent and heading toward stillness. I smartly gave myself a five-day weekend with only granola and log-splitting on the agenda. Anything else I accomplish will be born of that luscious mix of creativity and impulse.

It’s a dance, this life of daily labor and leisure (tilted lately a bit more heavily toward labor), balancing relief and tension, reassurance and uncertainty. A dear friend once confided in my that she’s done chasing happy and is instead cultivating contentment. Just the sound of that slowed my heart rate from frantic bird speed to that of a turtle’s (passive research reveals the normal rate to be about twenty-five beats per minute for turtles, compared to 282 beats per minute for a bird. I can relate to both). I want so much to be where she is, and have miles to go.

So, I’m finding small ways to get there, and they seem to be working. Patrick has introduced us both to the art of meditation and I’m embracing it with a peaceful determination. He made himself a string of beads that he fingers steadily in silence, helping him move from anxious to calm, distracted to mindful, restless to languid. I dug through my stash of beads and cording, making myself a couple of strands and now keep one on my nightstand and the other on the end table next to the couch. One’s rather whimsical with fat pink rabbit beads, the other more traditional and understated. I took both down to the meadow with me just because I wanted their company and, during a break in the writing, flipped over on my back, gazed into the Old Man’s canopy of fluttering green leaves and started working my way through the rabbit strand, each bead marking something for which I was grateful. I must have drifted off because I woke up with a slight jerk when the strand dropped from my hands onto the blanket. It was simply glorious, to thank my way into such solace.

Without beads, I know the jewelweed and rudbeckia blooms would get me there just as peacefully. So does each step I take from the back door to the woods, walking sticks in each hand to frame the rhythm of my gait. What a gift, to realize that I’m never separated from what I need to get me where I want to be, that helpers are all around and waiting for me to notice.

All I need is to get out of the kitchen and start walking.

Change of Scenery

With fresh egg salad and lightly-dressed chopped Roma tomatoes in the cooler on ice blocks, Patrick and I pointed the car west and made our way to a lovely public park about an hour from us, stopping at the bank to negotiate a check deposit. It was hot (still…) and the sun wasn’t even trying to hide behind any of the white-topped gray-bottomed clouds that did absolutely nothing in the sky but hang there. We packed our two folding camp chairs, more travel mugs than the car had cupholders for and a couple containers of keto chocolate brownies. A banana went along for the ride, balancing the guilt of the sundaes we’d have later on the way home. Together 29 years and counting, Patrick and I are still dating. How sweet, and encouraging as we look down the road with a view to our twilight years.

It was an off-market day and with batches of granola crisping in the fridge, we gave ourselves permission to not work and just be (a unicorn in our lives if ever there was one), to see what the not-farm world was doing. The park, with its paved walkways, charming footbridges, boardwalks and finely manicured grassy meadows was light on traffic when we arrived. We’d parked in the shade of a perfectly-shaped maple tree and began gathering what we thought we’d need in our pockets as we hiked when we happened to notice a few people standing near the open trunk of their car, helping one of their group attach a long fake fur tail to the black belt around her hips. Her head was wrapped in an open-faced hood sporting what looked like fox ears; she stood steadily on her thigh-high black stiletto boots.

Before we could exchange our silent reactions, two more cars pulled up and discharged their occupants, also costumed, wigged and stilettoed, carrying all manner of “weapons”—swords, bows, shields and flying stars dangling from elaborately decorated belts. Pointy-eared headbands were the norm and one young woman caught my eye with her Hello Kitty backpack. In our khaki cargo shorts and t-shirts, sensible hiking shoes and prescription sunglasses, we were unarmed, not dangerous and clearly underdressed for the occasion that was unfolding before us. “Did we miss a memo somewhere?” An elderly volunteer wearing a shirt with the word “Ranger” across the chest and driving a canopied golf cart pulled along slowly between the rows of parked cars. We flagged him down and our faces asked the question before we could. “They’re here to take photos” was all he’d give us and we were left to our own happy imaginations. Cars and costumed riders kept arriving, putting the finishing touches on their outfits before locking their vehicles and heading over to a sign-in table. We moved among them (masked and safely distanced), still keeping to our own simple agenda and growing more enchanted by the minute.

Ok, so we’re not in our twenties anymore but we do stay fairly current with social norms and trends. Cosplay isn’t outside our realm of understanding. Conversely, we don’t have a separate closet for satiny capes with meticulously stitched-on sequins, tottering platform boots and a dresser full of styrofoam heads to store our many different wigs. In a delightfully unexpected turn of events, our simple picnic in a nearby park became a people-watching event to end all. We hiked a few of the trails and then returned to the car to fetch our lunch, setting up our camp chairs under a stand of cottonwoods across from the parking lot, with a perfect view of the day’s arrivals and departures.

Of course we mused about what goes into such an extracurricular commitment, a hobby with pieces and parts that can’t possibly be comfortable on such a humid late August day. Yet here they were, laughing, posing for cameras (not just iPhones; we’re talking tripods and fancy National Geographic photographer-type equipment; each car seemed to contain someone who filled this job specifically), staying smartly hydrated through it all. The mood was fun, noncompetitive, colorful and we hadn’t paid a dime to be this entertained. Our own hobbies pale in comparison: keeping a modest flock of layers, wood-turning and bookbinding, art quilting and granola-making. None of these needs an audience (customers for the granola, sure, but we tend to give everything else we make away) and I’m not sure we’d be comfortable with folks watching us anyway. Even when we were younger, we were content to quietly go about our creative pursuits and would only elaborate on them if someone asked. The pandemic didn’t invent introverts, I can assure you.

As we finished eating, Patrick mused that we’d planned and packed and traveled 45 miles to do what we could easily have done just a couple of acres from our own front porch. Why? We didn’t know in advance that the destination community park was hosting such eye candy; we just wanted a day spent in each other’s pleasant company, leaving unfinished projects and obligations at home for a while (as guilt-free as is possible for us) and enjoy a slice of life in its own time. Mission accomplished, I’d say, with a huge cherry on top. We meandered our way back home, no hurry to get to those left-behind responsibilities, driving through a few old suburban neighborhoods and making a quick run to the art supplies store for beads and open-stock sheets of crafting paper. We never stopped smiling as we tucked the day’s images safely into our memories, to be pulled out on some nondescript winter day when there’s a break in the conversation.

Our landed home still holds fast to our hearts and we intend for that to continue in perpetuity. It’s also good to step off that familiar common ground to see what other folks do with their lives. Before dinner, we unpacked it all in her presence and it quietly became part of the story we keep living here. She’ll take good care of it long after we’ve forgotten the details.