You know you’ve danced this dance before, too. You walk out the door to your front house and within seconds, you feel it on your face: spiderwebs.
It’s in your hair: gossamer strands. It’s on your face: sticky sinews. And somewhere, maybe somewhere on your person — in your hair or on your neck — is a giant, hairy, leggy, industrious lady.
You’ve stepped right into her drama, and all you can do is dance around like an idiot, flailing your arms and shaking her out of your hair.
It’s the Salem spider dance, and every time I leave my house my dance card is full.
I’ve had a pretty rough couple of weeks. September has left me shell shocked. Instead of peeling apples and lighting a fire and letting the cooling air send me into my melancholy fall reverie, my favorite month of the year has passed without even a semblance of my regular fall activities.
In the past month, I’ve been to two weddings — a family friend’s celebration in Seattle and my cousin’s nuptials in Gettysburg, PA — planned a university course, started a new job, held a clothing swap, hosted my first Fulbright Alumni Association event, wrote several magazine stories, and somehow remembered to wash my face and feed my husband.
And yet, walking into the world of spiderwebs around my house has not been an annoyance. I have started taking a quiet, private joy in watching the drawn-out dramas of the spiders making their traps across every pathway around my house.
Seriously, if I had a fear of spiders, I think Oregon would be a kind of hell on earth. Instead, I have begun to measure my own days by the their toil and strife.
Writing assignment taking longer than expected? That spider on the porch has decided to spin a web stretching from the geranium pot to the window box and she’ll never be done.
Sick of dealing with jerkholes? The spider spinning a web next to my front door is waiting patiently as a smaller spider rolls itself into a sticky mess in the corner of her web, mwa ha ha…
Spent the entire month away from home when I would really rather have been going all domestic on some apples or writing my novel?
The spider pictured above came into my life, wrecked havoc on the insect population around my house, scared me half out of my mind when I walked through her web, stayed for a few days, and was gone.
Would that all the insects I’ve encountered in Oregon made me feel so good about toiling so hard as the days just slip away. I rather like coming home exhausted from a twelve-hour plane trip and having a little frantic soft shoe before I even walk in the door.
There are a couple of spiders living outside my kitchen window, and I just can’t seem to bring it to myself to knock down their webs… I guess you could say they haven’t gotten in my way, so I’m staying out of theirs.
though, there are from time to time, webs that stretch from my car to the boat that’s parked next to it, and it’s not a friendly feat when I open the door to drive away, wearing something stringy and that oh-so creepy feeling of wondering where that little lady is now climbing… aaaahk!
:p
Every morning when I make my way out to the garden, I flail my arms like crazy in front of me, to knock down the webs that have appeared between the trees, shrubs, gates, cars, plants, everywhere. My neighbors probably think I’m crazy, but it’s better than meeting Charlotte face to face!
Poor Charlottes… all that futility! I guess you’re too big to catch
Scot cleared away the front door today. Aw! He got rid of all my authentic Halloween decorations, of which there were many.
“September has left me shell shocked. Instead of peeling apples and lighting a fire and letting the cooling air send me into my melancholy fall reverie, my favorite month of the year has passed without even a semblance of my regular fall activities.”
OK Emily. Here’s the deal. Oregon 101. Spring in Oregon runs through the end of June. So don’t get bummed when it is cold and rainy until July 4th. Summer runs from July 1 through September. It’s normally sunny and warm and dry (really dry). September can be the most glorious summer month, sunny and warm, but not too warm (especially at night). I actually think September tends to have the best weather of any month in Oregon. Fall begins in October and lasts through most of December, normally. People that move here from other places need to get it out of their head that summer is June to August. Here summer is July to September.
Actually, we had a few nights where we turned the heat on, I broke out the flannel shirts, and the apples are ripe for the picking. That, by my definition, is autumn.
“And somewhere, maybe somewhere on your person — in your hair or on your neck — is a giant, hairy, leggy, industrious lady. You’ve stepped right into her drama …”
This made me laugh so hard. Oregon is indeed the land of spiders, which I guess is superior to the land of flying roaches, but inferior to the land of baby bunnies.
And, I’m not trying to start trouble, but if I were you, I’d send your husband on spider patrol (aka, walking in front of you with a stick). You can justify this by citing your delicate condition.
When my sister was living in Philadelphia she shared her space with three-inch cockroaches. Generally, she would flip on a light, they would scurry away, and she’d do a little angry dance. Until one flew onto her chest while she was showering one day…