Surprise and the Demise of a Spider

Surprise and the Demise of a Spider

I smashed a spider today. It caught me by surprise as I was opening my address book by our computer.  I squealed without a response from the man, my husband who was occupied in one of our bedrooms.  I stood rooted to the spot, looking to see if the spider would be crawling out to get me. When the man finally appeared, smiling he remarked, “Spider?”

“Yes,” I told him, “it surprised me. I am going to smash it.”

In my house we have a jar for catching our spiders. We have a catch and release policy. Lately my husband has started using a very large wide mouth jar for the long legged spiders that frequent our bathroom. Rain or shine, once in the jar, the captured spider is carried out to the end of driveway and placed in the grass. We figured it will take a least a couple days or maybe a week for the spider to find its way back to the house. Today was not this spider’s day.

I went to fetch one of my brown leather loafers working my hand down into the toes for leverage. I approached the counter where the computer, tablets, address book, etc. rested.  Carefully, I lifted the address book up and the chase was on as the spider darted out from beneath the pink address book. I whacked with my loafer, missed and the spider went sliding down the wall, whack, a direct hit followed by a few more whacks before I attempted to pick up the spider with a tissue. I picked him up, jumped, dropped the dead spider, wait a moment to make sure it wasn’t moving before I picked it up again to head to the garbage can under the sink.

 

The man commented. ”It is what happens, if you don’t make it easy.”

Insects, bugs, and spiders. I like them all. When I was in college, I would spend hours watching ants coming and going from their ant hills. Beetles were fascinating, I was forever turning them back over from being on their backs. Spiders in their webs in the morning sun with dew glistening on the strands were a joy.  I grew up in the country with fields of alfalfa growing, cows lowing in the early evening, buzzing of bees about the yellow roses by my bedroom window. It was grand.

 

Yesterday, my husband and I were talking about a woman we had seen who is always walking about the place where we work. Head down, texting as she goes.  We reminisced about when we got our first cell phones.  It had been when our son was heading off to New York City for graduate school.  It was his first cell phone as well. We talked about getting our first microwave.  It had been a present from my husband’s mom.  We would have never thought about it. It was amazing. We had stepped into the 20^th century.

This morning, after microwaving the water for tea, I noticed a small fly doing its dance in mid-air until it danced into my hot tea water.  I snarled. “Bastard.” I am not the happiest in the morning.  I took my cup to the sink, searched for a teaspoon and spend some time chasing the fly about the surface of the water until said bastard was in the teaspoon.  Hot water and one small fly do not mix. I dumped him down the drain and made my tea.

The Spider that wasn’t There

I had thought of going for an early morning walk but cooking my broccoli, washing my hair and having a nice bath had taken precedence over the idea of getting ready to walk out into the day on this quiet morning. Having eaten my breakfast with fat blueberries and raspberries over my cereal, I felt more like tackling the day.  A good cup of tea sans one small fly helped to fortify my attitude.  One hot bath coming up.

I was enjoying my tub, rolling from side to side to rinse off the soap suds. Now, my vision is not quite good when it comes to close up things. I wear reading glasses.  But as I rolled over to my left side, I noticed on the side of tub a small object with legs moving towards my tub water. I yelled for the man while I kept both eyes on legs reaching outward and onto the surface of the tub.

My husband appeared, he saw my out stretched right arm and hand and placed the glass jar in it. Next came the envelope for sliding under the jar with hopes the spider would be in the jar. You will remember I have no glasses, poor vision and solely relying upon a hope and a prayer.

The man took the jar and looked.  “Can you see him?” I asked.

“No.” He said. He headed out the door.

“I just took an empty jar outside to the grass”, was the man’s observation when he returned from his trek outside our house.

I am not surprised.  Many a toe fuzzy from our socks has died a horrible death in the tub as the identification of the fuzzy was poor due to the inability to focus with my eyes.  Despite the lack of motion upon the carpet, I have been known to jump and squeal when I thought it was moving towards me. Just another toe fuzzy or bit of fuzz. What does this really mean?

I can link it to my poor concentration in meditation. It is all in the perception.  My mind wanders, skips to the left and to the right.  I imagine good things, mostly in my daydreaming. Why? I can drift with my heartbeats to slightly different place when I meditate. While there I can do anything. Winding spirals of color around myself, my community and our world filling it all up with healing and love.  I feel it to be true. I know it to be true. But a spider dropping down from the ceiling or scrambling from beneath a pink address book makes my heart skip, and I fall out of the different place. Surprise and quite often the unfortunate demise of a spider who only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But is the spider really out of place and does it have a watch to check the time? Is there a wrong time? Perspective might be the answer in this case. It certainly is for me.

 

I am constantly bombarded by spiders, they come from the internet, the radio and television.  Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed with trying to do repair work on myself and the world.  Bless these people, sent healing to those, guarding myself from too much input. But the need is great, though I am small, I believe myself to be mighty. After all, I am just a spirit hanging out doing things.  Remembering that the next spider is getting a break, I have lots of jars.