I don’t like bugs. I
don’t like any form of bug or insect or arthropod or arachnid. I realize they are each different “classifications”
but to me they are all creepy things that I don’t want anywhere near me. But I have noticed a change, perhaps an
evolution, in my thinking about these creepy creatures. As I have gotten older, I find myself hesitating
before I step on, swat, smoosh, spray or otherwise terminate the life of a fly
or an ant or a spider. Where once I held the thought that bugs were
nothing but a nuisance and an inconvenience and I had every right to remove
them from existence…I now ask myself “what right do I have?” That bug is not actually trying to bother
me. It is merely trying to live its life
as it was meant to. It has no thought of me nor desire to hurt me. It did not seek out to interrupt me and my
ways. If anything, I am the one interrupting.
This epiphany led to my reaction to what most would consider
a forgettable event. One day, while
heading out to do something completely insignificant, I noticed a spider web on
my driver’s side mirror. I won’t lie, my
first reaction was to destroy it. Spider
= nuisance. But I looked at her web,
really looked at it. It was so
miraculous, like a work of art. I thought
about how hard she must have worked on that web. And now she was sleeping somewhere inside
that mirror…waiting for morning, for a new day and all that it holds. How could I interrupt that?
I left her and the web alone. I went to do my insignificant thing. As I drove around town I kept a close eye on
the web. Miraculously, it withstood the
wind and the elements and by the time I got home, it was mostly intact along
with the food she had trapped. I was
amazed at the strength of that web, amazed at the strength in something so
delicate.
Days passed and the spider, which I had now named Charlotte,
was still living in my driver’s side mirror.
Every night she made a new web and each one was beautiful. Sometimes her webs were small yet functional and
other times they were huge and elaborate.
I felt guilty every time I went somewhere in which I had to drive over 40 mph. Charlotte’s webs couldn’t withstand the higher
speeds. By the time I got home, the web
and all of its food was gone. But every
night, she would rebuild that web. Sometimes
I would go out just to watch her weaving.
And I wondered if she knew I was there.
I thought to myself, why did Charlotte choose my car? A moving vehicle is not the best of homes for
a spider. That’s when I realized that
she had no concept of the human world or of our trivial things. She didn’t know she was living inside a car
window. She was just living. She was just doing what she does. Just as I was doing what I do. It occurred to me the imbalance of our
lives. Here I am worrying about money
and career and relationships…worrying about what people think of me. And Charlotte…she is not worrying, she is living. She is forever in the moment of life and
being the very thing she was born to be.
It suddenly became clear who was interrupting who.
This morning I woke up and it was a day like every other
day. I walked to my car to set out on another
insignificant journey. I looked to see
Charlotte’s new web and there was nothing.
Only a few strings, still stuck to the window, left from the day
before. There was no new web, no new
miracle. Charlotte was gone. Either she left or she died. Either way, I’m sad.
Life is one of those things that require you to evolve
before you can know and understand.
There are so many smaller things that are bigger than us. A bug might be a nuisance but still it is a
miracle. Like each one of us. We each have a nature and a purpose and we
are all interconnected and part of the same beautiful world. Consider this next time you swat a fly or
step on an ant or interrupt the web of a spider.
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” ~
E.B. White
