Spider Garden

Spider Garden

Winter came and a massive pile of snow covered the small garden at the side of my Parents house. It created a white uninteresting lump. It covered the fragile plot from the howling winds and the bitter cold. That winter the snow fell endlessly. The mountains of it worried me. I wondered if the plants would be crushed and die underneath.

As I stared out the window at heaps of snow, my imagination would wander to a time when the grass would be green, the lavender purple, and the poppies their brilliant orange. Some days I would gaze for hours, drifting between a summer day and bleak reality, having nothing better to do.

My life at that time was as uncertain as the weather. I still did not have a place of my own. I was still staying with my Parents. I did not know from one day to the next what would happen. As another blizzard approached, blinding my thinking and concentration, a stunning sunny day would follow afterwards, confusing my senses and paralleling my ups and downs.

As spring approached, I waited expectantly for the snow to leave and the ground to be seen again. Spring began....but so did the rain. It rained torrentially for 3 weeks and the plants were battered along with my spirit. I woke up every morning to yet another grey, damp, empty day. Trapped inside, like an overdue pregnancy I waited for the morning I would get up and be greeted with the sunshine.

When the weather changed, I emerged from my damp surroundings. I flung open the windows and let the fresh, clean air into the house. I walked around on the sodden grass looking at the condition the gardens were in.

The little side garden that had captured my interest was flattened, and the dried stalks and dead leaves of last years hostas were driven into the mud. Weeds had taken over in the 3 week deluge and trying to determine the difference between them and the emerging plants was almost impossible.

However, it did not stay my resolve to restore the little garden back to the original glory of thick hosta plants and ornamental grasses. I filled bag after bag of dead stalks and weeds and left only the tiny green shoots of the growing plants. Almost over night, the previously weed choked garden began to flourish. I was thrilled to see the leaves thicken and new flower stalks sneaking their way through the undergrowth.

The summer began hot and unrelenting and my interests turned to different things. I forgot the little garden as it was more than capable of looking after itself. I spent the summer in self discovery and found love in the bargain. Still confused, and worried about where I was going to live, I tried to put my anxiety aside and enjoy what was left of the warm sunshine and new emotions. As I started down the back side of August I noticed a curious thing. The little garden had become a haven for spiders.

Being both fascinated and repulsed by spiders, initially I felt offended by the eight-legged creatures infesting my lush almost exotic garden. I watched as one after another spun their gossamer strands building webs to catch their prey. Then I remembered how that garden had represented the changes in my life and began to interest myself in what they were doing. The petals had long left the flowers and had left a grid of stalks again in the shady little garden. The spiders kept coming and soon the garden was covered by a shimmering blanket.






As I examined the garden more closely, I could see the grasses were starting to turn brown and the plants were starting to wither. The spiders continued to increase in number and as the plants wilted the spiders grew at an astronomical rate. Some of them were huge. Then I realized these were Mothers and would not live through the winter, this was their last resting place

So I sat and watched my spider garden. Instead of the plants I watched the spiders and thought about how to create a place for myself in this world. New life was occurring in the garden and it was for me too. I didn’t know where the summer went. I was getting ready to leave. I was getting ready to start over again. For the Mother spiders, life was over, their purpose in life completed, for me it was just beginning.

How I ended up at my Parents house at the age of 41 is a very long story. I had lived there for months and been essentially homeless for a year and a half. I tried making it on my own but somehow everything fell apart when my family did, when my burned and blackened relationship gave me no choice but to leave. Now I was leaving the sanctuary of my Parent’s care, to try again, start again, excited and scared all wrapped up in one emotion.

So here I sit, a year later. I don’t have that spider garden. I have a place of my own. I have wildlife that I feed every day to draw them to me. The animals change as the seasons do, spinning life, death, renewing and ending, just like the spiders did.

If I look deep inside I always have a spider garden either real or imagined. Somewhere every minute something dies and something is reborn. The season of the spider garden was a life lesson for me, it made me reflect on something so small, something I would normally pass by.

It made me notice life as a microcosm, and how important it is to look inside for the rebirth of myself. Whether depressed, sad, anxious, or happy something always remains that I can draw upon. A phone call from an old friend, a sunny day, or a touch on the face by someone I love. Sometimes the sound of a child laughing even if the child is not my own can be renewing. The nattering of a squirrel or the squawk of a blue jay can stir something in my soul.

Some plants, a bug I don’t really like, and some deep thinking was all it took for me to heal a huge hole I didn’t even realize I had. For that I thank spiders, ugly as they are, for showing me their true beauty. Just as life can seem so ugly sometimes, somewhere near by there is something beautiful if I only look