capri0mni | An essay I wrote for the Art Garden, probably 21 years ago:

spiralsheep posted a link to a science article, today, about wee little spiders who hoist shells into the ~~treetops~~ bushes to live in. And that reminded me of the sheer spider!love I often feel, and also of this essay that I wrote for the Art Garden years ago, for the theme "animals." Based on the cultural reference I stick in the title, I think I must have written this for the Autumn, 1990 gathering (or maybe the summer of '91), recalling an event that happened a few years before.

This was the archival piece that Irene O'Garden picked for me to read for the Art Garden 20th Anniversary, btw. Note that I was reading this aloud, and could trace what I was describing with my fingers as I read.

Why I Did Not Go See Arachnophobia

Like Most people, I am awed with the power and grandeur of nature: thunderstorms that fill the sky with blue-green light for minutes at a time, the exploding crack of trees breaking under ice, or the spires of mountains ringed by clouds. But I am impressed most with the little things: the reflection of sunlight off water, the sound of dew dripping from the leaves at night, last autumn's leaf curled amid the grass of spring.

And while I coo at all the cute and cuddly things: baby seals, rose buds and squirrels – I feel most protective toward the creepy-crawlies. If I ever found a bug in my college dorm, I tried to get the creature out the door before she or he met with an unfriendly shoe. I guess, when you spend a lot of time crawling from place to place, as I do, you have a different perspective on life.

Spiders hold a special place in my heart, particularly the web weavers. These creatures erect what for them are huge structures, all of pure silk and glue – not even Donald Trump could do that (though if he could, he might not be having all his money problems). Every spider's web is different. The little brown house spider weaves the three-dimensional web we see in corners-marvels of geometry.

One night, while sitting in the bathroom, reading, I had the privilege of watching a house spider build her web up close. I looked up from the page to find her going from finger to finger on my right hand. I laughed to myself: the image of me, sitting on the toilet, book in hand, covered with cobwebs, was too apt to be ignored. I left my book and turned my attention to the joke in progress.

She (usually, only the females are avid web-weavers) first ran down the inside of my pinky, playing out the silk behind her. Then she ran up the ring finger and over, forming a triangle with a bridge across the fingers. She then crossed this bridge, and continued playing out the silk across the tops of all the other fingers down to the thumb – the top of the web-frame completed. A drop from the thumb to the palm formed the first real three-dimensional element, She went from there to the index finger, back to the palm and then to the ring finger. Crossing once more to the thumb, she began to eat the silk she had laid out before, playing out more silk behind her at a slightly faster rate (reading up on spiders later, I learned that this was to create slack needed in the design). Halfway across, she dropped to the palm and up again across the pinky-ring finger bridge. Then she played out five or six layers of silk across the ring-middle finger bridge.

Whether this was for strength, or if she was planning to spread the strands out later, I'll never know. My legs were falling asleep, and I was ready for bed. I carefully guided her off my hand onto the wall. I felt bad about destroying her creation, but I knew it would never work out. I am, after all, right-handed. I'd probably clobber the poor thing by accident. If a spider ever decides to build a web on my left hand, I'll let you know how it turns out.