The Spider in My Window

I sat down at my desk, overlooking the beautiful rose that I could reach out and touch if a window was not between us. Pages and pages of a paper with the focal point of suffering stood between me and success. A wall hit like this paper was my limit. I had done so much work and studied so hard the past couple years with just one class to go. How is it that the last five minutes on a treadmill seem the longest? I felt as though time was slowly passing in ironic fashion making the ending drawn out and tiring moreso than the other many semesters combined. I felt a bone deep tired feeling take over and the wind in my sails heavier than light. I breathed in deeply and noticed the Arkansas hills, sky, and treetops, along with rooftops that scattered the valley below my new house. There was no window big enough or beautiful enough to make this place Heaven. In a good way, my hope in that was lost. And then, like an unexpected surprise a spider as big as a quarter crawled onto my window.

The world had been shut down to connection like before the pandemic, yet lives moving onward. My children were busy at school and husband in many meetings throughout the day. My job to move forward was to stay still in my own hidden way to do my writing over the theme of suffering and pain.  Alone again. Reading, writing, thinking, my heart sinking with every minute of isolation adding to the overwhelming number that had already been my sentence. Oh how I wished for a moment like this in the Spring, to be tired of being alone would have been a luxury. But, balance is what I craved most. Nothing would take away the season of aloneness or the amount of work that could only be done by myself. But then, a spider as big as a quarter crawled onto my window.

Light brown in color with long legs in the front and rounded in the back it creepily entered my life. Usually, I would be very uncomfortable by the site of a spider on my window, but something about this one intrigued me. It had spots on the legs proving it to be a Spotted Orb Spider, one of the most beautiful known to North America when the sun beams shine through its web and decorated spotted legs. I never saw a spider as beautiful until this aloneness I felt from moving houses and doing hidden work made the spider's presence intriguing and comforting. Friendly to humans and on the outside of the window, this spider had caught my attention and I began sitting and watching it in quiet moments of break. Day after day it spun its web and I was amazed at the intricacy of the detail and the unwavering work ethic. I watched as it trapped bugs and went to town eating lunch on the other side of the large glass. What used to unnerve me had become a comfort. I never had given spiders time to show me their magic. 

Weeks went by as the weather was beautiful and even hot at times until a freezing night when I woke up and saw that the spider had died. It must have frozen to death. I felt like the two of us were weaving away our hidden lives moving us forward, yet unnoticed by the rest of the world. I almost felt appreciated for my unique work, too. I was spinning day after day a web most people cannot see. I knocked on the window hoping to see a stir, but nothing. A couple days went by and Logan my husband knew all about my spider buddy. He felt bad for the loss and I asked him to go take the web down, because in Anne of Green Gables style it brought me to a feeling of loss far too intense for a relationship to a spider. He came inside and said: "Molly, it is alive! It is alive!"I ran to the window noticing the spider's attempt to stretch out and hold it's web together coming out of its safety freeze. I did not ever study or notice spiders long enough to realize to survive a freeze they freeze in a ball. It was moving around and I felt happy my work would not be alone, but sad we had messed up part of the web.

The spider disappeared by the time I was back again in my pillow chair with a front row view. I can see it from my desk, but it is a front row view from my relaxing corner chair. I noticed it was gone. We had discouraged it and scared it. I hated seeing a dead large spider in my window...but now it was loss, to hello again, to loss again. This was much more of a story than a spider and lonely connective soul. This spider evoked emotion in me to explore that other things would not or I felt too much pain to allow. I was thankful for the weeks with that spider and the entertainment it brought. I was thankful for the hard work and expertise. I was thankful for the very first time of the very important role of spiders in this world. And I was sad to have believed it to be dead and messed with its home and creation. But then, a spider as big as a quarter crawled onto my window. And with zest and determination that spider was rebuilding the web. And somehow it infused me with the courage to keep going, too.