A Morning Person's Observations #2

In Defense of Spiders

If you don't like them, don't come and visit me.  They are everywhere.  Under the sink in the bathroom, by the trash can in the kitchen, over the doorway to the back patio.  Some of them have spindly little legs and look as gentle as Daddy Long Legs.  Some of them are stocky, striped, and remind me of the Wolf Spiders at Fraser we would trap in buckets, equally harmless in my opinion, but ferociously designed.

My love for living creatures is based heavily on their ability to deplete the environment of mosquitoes.  The more mosquitoes something eats, the more I love it.  Which is why I don't get a creepy feeling around spiders anymore.  I have boundaries with them.  They are allowed in my room, but not in my bed, so anytime they are over or next to my bed they are caught in a cup and removed outside.  They also are allowed in the bathroom, but not in the shower, and go through the same removal process when found there.  I usually do this with grace, but I must admit I can think of at least three times when the spider I have removed seemed big and fierce enough to me that the cup and paper were dropped in the lawn and I ran back inside and closed the door between me and the Aragog (the cup and paper were retrieved the next morning).

For the most part though, spiders are friends.  The trickiest boundary I have had to navigate with them recently has been related to the hammock.  While walking up the steps to the clearing where the hammock lays, both hands full with my tea and cereal, I usually feel a bit of web on my face or hands.  One day, it goes too far.  I walk directly into a spider web and see the culprit scuttling on the belly of my T-shirt.  A lot of tea was sacrificed to the earth, and the spider was flung unceremoniously, but I am hoping harmlessly, as well.

I would like a clear shot to the hammock from the back door, but I always feel wrong messing with spiders outside, since that's their home and I should be the one to adjust the boundaries.  For now, I have gotten better about double checking and maneuvering around the webs, and the spiders have gotten a bit better at building up higher, out of head reach, at least for someone who is 5'2.

Little dreamcatchers

So we figure out how to co-exist, and I take my place in the hammock for a morning sit spot.  Spiders are magical to me, the way the longer you sit in one spot, the more webs start popping into view, seeming to materialize from nothing.  I remember talking to my childhood friend, Mariam, about her Islamic faith.  She told me a story about Muhammad (peace be upon him) being persecuted by a group of angry people.  He hid inside a cave, and a spider spun a web over the entrance, protecting him.  I think about this story as I lay in the hammock and count more and more spider webs surrounding me.  The spider webs are dreamcatchers, trapping all the negative energy in the world, keeping bad thoughts and feelings at bay.

Listening to the Chickadees, I find an additional surprise for the sit spots: slugs mating on the first step up to the clearing with the hammock!