she-spider

A small, exquisite web dances on the breeze, anchored between a rain barrel and a garden post in my backyard. In the middle sits a tiny orb spider affectionately named Charlotte, after Mercy’s favorite literary character. She is no larger than the tip of my finger, with thin, spindly legs dusted yellow and brown that stretch out from her thick core. 

Every evening, I step out back and check on my tomato plants, talking to them softly because I am a strange and unruly creature. I like to imagine the sound of my voice vibrating through their roots and branches in some cosmic, cymatic way. I stand still for a few moments, taking in Charlotte’s handiwork. Each stitch is intentional. Every thread is expertly woven. 

Sometimes, I get to witness her keen skills as she meticulously spins her silk lines, busy with the work of creating, spinning patterns of zigs and zags and perfect circles through her limbs. Every once in a while, the wind catches a loose strand, waving it along the breeze, whispy filament flashing silver in the sunlight. 

The metaphor makes itself.

Here we are, tying gossamer strings around our waists, anchoring our hope to whatever might keep us from falling. Here we are, tossing golden lassos around anything promising to keep us safe from the biting frost of loneliness. Here we are, connected, all part of the same heaving web, yet reaching out into the abyss, grasping for the touch of another. 

It takes a village. 

We aren’t meant to go it alone. 

There is strength in numbers. 

We are better, together.

If we make it, I make it.

We hear these phrases and see them stitched on throw pillows and slapped across rusty bumpers. Their ordinariness makes them seem tame, but at their core, they are potent. Why? Because we were made for each other. M.F.E.O. (for my Sleepless in Seatle peeps). The more aware we become of the silk threads spinning from our own hearts, the more we yearn for a place to tie them. We long to attach to something that will help keep us tethered.

It's as if we know we need one another, but we’re lost and can’t locate the map that leads us back. In the absence of community, we isolate and attempt to do things on our own that people have historically achieved with a large support network, and we wind up burned out and depressed, empty and alone. 

Our webs are broken, and we’ve forgotten how to weave.   

We’ve forgotten we are she-spiders, web-weavers, and belonging-bearers.

We’ve forgotten we are making something beautiful, together.

“Who are you talking to?” my neighbor Rose pops her sweet gray head over our shared fence and asks as she overhears me murmuring to my garden. 

“My tomatoes and Charlotte,” I smile, knowing she already thinks I’ve lost my marbles as I go on to explain that Charlotte is an arachnid. Rose laughs and I wink as I gather a bunch of bright red tomatoes in my hands and reach them over the wood slats, placing them in her wrinkly hands. She pats my arm and waddles back inside. 

There. Did you catch it? A shimmering lifeline blowing in the wind. A moment of connection. I grab it and tie it to my heart before it has a chance to blow away.

I’m in bed, sipping a cup of turmeric tea, about to turn on my sound machine when Steph texts us. She has a story to tell. She can wait til next week, she says, but we will not have it. We know her story is a fire burning in her bones. Zoom! Now! Go for a walk! Anything! We must know. We must bear witness. It’s later for me than it is for them, and I can’t make the Zoom. But I’m still awake when Steph sends me the story, via voice messages, one at a time. Meticulously. Beautifully. Threading each tendril of lore with tenderness and care. She is weaving me back in. Scooping me up and placing me back into the web, making sure I don’t fall out.

There it is again. Another place along the web where the binding wraps tight. So simple. A delicate exchange that shifted the axis of belonging for me.

It doesn’t take much to become a reinforced seam, a safe space, a slow and attentive binding that allows us to bend and not break and offers us leverage against brutal summer storms and lonely stories.

This morning, I take my coffee outside and sit beside the garden, small curls of steam rising from my cup as heat meets cold air. I wrap my sweater tighter and inhale the tantalizing promise of Fall in the air, lifting my head toward the fresh sky with a whisper of gratitude. Everything has a season, and nothing lasts forever. There is some heart-rending magic in that.

Charlotte is weaving new threads this morning. She moves steadily, taking her time and making every movement count. I know soon she will slow. Soon, she will stop constructing and tidying her web. Soon, she’ll settle into the center and shut each of her eight perfect eyes for the last time. Orbs don’t make it past late Autumn here in the Midwest.

There is a tender tragedy in imagining the she-spider who made our garden more beautiful curling into herself, last tiny puffs of oxygen expelling as the leaves above her little head change color. And yet, if her presence were infinite, I don’t imagine I’d appreciate it in quite the same way. Her impermanence and the fleeting nature of the art she offers us is what makes it all the more precious, as it is with all things. As it is with us. 

We are all connected, there is a sacred communal desire woven into the fabric of our very selves. Give into it. Reach out for it. Fall down for it. Rise up for it.

Belonging is ours for the making.

(hi, Charlotte!)

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FIVE FAVES

1. This book. The cover alone makes it magic, and the story is rich with landscape, color, ache, and imagination.

2. I am currently obsessed with learning about the Victorian Language of Flowers, and the hand-drawn flowers in this book paired with the meaning they represent are fascinating.

3. I’ve been on the search for the perfect water bottle for ages, that was, until I found this one. Every time I use it, it makes me happy.

4. Taylor Swift is releasing an Eras Tour experience in theaters on Oct 13th, and I CANNOT EVEN. *immediately books tickets*

5. This song. Mercy and I have been playing it on repeat all week.

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