leaving the webs

There are webs in most of the corners of our house. Some are simply lines that span the edges of the window, rainbow threads I only notice at certain times on sunny days. Others are bigger and well developed – those have become fixtures, as much as the pictures we’ve hung on purpose. My favorite looks like a kite, above the kitchen sink. It’s fastened on three sides, its complexity concentrated about the middle, and so takes on the appearance of a box kite, all filigree continually airborne. Some of these webs are active, some probably aren’t – I rarely see their makers, except scuttling around the floor here and there.

I realize at some point I’ll need to wipe the slate clean – things could get rather Great Expectations-y. But I love them, and I love sharing the space with spiders. It seems a worthy compromise, for all the good work they do. And, luckily for me and thanks to my mother, spiders have ceased to be a source of fear or surprise (most of the time). Instead they’ve taken on traditionally mythic proportions. Like Charlotte, spiders are wise weavers, creators; they are storytellers. A web is a trap, surely, for prey as well as all flights of the imagination. A number of American Indian myths have Spider weaving the first alphabet, giving humans the written language.

I lived for a while in Seattle with a fairly large spider in the corner of my bathroom. She was an excellent exercise in patience and understanding, because she was BIG: probably three inches in diameter, including big ol’ legs. I love spiders, but they will make you draw your breath. Every morning I had to confront my initial reaction and take the time to see her. Then to thank her. I finally let her out, as I don’t think there was much of an insect food supply among the tile. Doors long shut in one’s brain can be opened, I’ve found, by letting something scary be. By dwelling along side it.

Besides the individual inspiration the spiders bring, I like the fact that insects find reason to take up residence. The health of an ecosystem can often be measured by the presence of predators, as such it’s an excellent sign that we’re due to get our mountain lions back in twenty or thirty years (in the words of famed tracker Susan Morse, “don’t build, and they will come”). I don’t (or do I?) necessarily want catamounts lurking behind the sofa, but I am glad we’ve got some complexity in the house. Clean is good, sterile is terrible. If we go to the trouble of tossing out all the detritus, literal and metaphorical, nothing grows. I’m reassured that we’ve got teensy bacteria and particles to feed the ones who feed the ones who feed the spiders. Then we’re living, and cycling, and changing.

There’s great precedent and expectation to strive for perfect cleanliness in the places we dwell – our psychological space included. But health is balance, not an inert extreme. Things that die take a while to break down and re-filter, and they’ve got to linger a bit amongst the living. That’s when the spiders will set up shop, and weave the most wonderful webs.