Web of Summer Musing

Professor J,

I always enjoy it, as I'm sure our readers do, when you do the unusual and share pictures. Looks like you and your crew had a fun and enlightening trip. I wanted to stand on that staircase in the miniature fairy castle! So glad the predicted foul weather never showed up. I'm looking forward to hearing (and seeing!)  more about it this week.

Beekeeping has taught me to be observant of tiny creatures and details I've overlooked in the past. Just this afternoon I spotted a pair of American goldfinches in the sunflower patch. We've never seen them here and I couldn't stop looking long enough to make sure my camera had a memory card. Which, sadly, it did not. So instead of beautiful birds you just get the stocky spider. But they were so lovely, bending the sunflower heads low with their weight while they gorged themselves on the seeds, bees darting in and out of the hives making the last frantic trips of evening.

Good grief. I'm channeling Annie Dillard in this post. 

Every morning for several weeks a spider (that's his picture above) built a huge web over the patio from the cedar tree, where he lives, to another point, the Adirondack chairs, for instance. One morning I was drying the chairs off while watching him on his web and accidentally swept across his anchor thread and the entire masterpiece collapsed like a doomed hot air balloon. Deflated in a wisp of a moment just as I had been admiring it from the side, I destroyed it.I'd always assumed this was why webs disappeared, because a bird flew into them, or a careless animal (in this case me) came in contact with them. I began to be more careful not to disturb him.

Last week I sat watching this good sized, though sturdy and unattractive, spider sit patiently in the center of his glistening marvel. He tilted his head when I approached and looked at me. Instantly he dropped to the bottom edge, disconnected something and collapsed the entire bottom section himself toward the center where he collected the now single line as he made his way to the top where he repeated the process. He made short work of it in just a few seconds and collected every bit of the web as he went. For all the spiders I'd seen over a lifetime, I'd never witnessed this particular moment before.

I imagined him packing it into his tiny briefcase. The night's work over. 

My first impulse was to google how arachnids both spin and collect their webs along with every other fascinating detail. I do however, enjoy taking some time to wonder. Have you noticed that wondering is something done rarely now that everyone at the table can instantly fact check every single topic for discussion? We seldom tilt our heads up anymore and say "I wonder..." Instead we look down at our phones and say "Let me google that." All without even giving ourselves quiet moments of observation or thought. In some ways it is marvelously satisfying to have every question answered (though that generally leads to more questions) but don't you think something has been lost in the process?

Speculation. Ideas about what might be. Wonderment. Room for the mysterious. Anticipation of answers.

Given a little time and thought, sometimes a thing can be figured out.  There's a great satisfaction in that. I've occasionally come to some conclusion while trying to puzzle something together. Which feels amazing until I'm made aware that there have been volumes written about the thought I considered my own.  The first reaction there is a feeling of disappointment that the thinking isn't new or original to me. Often wondering if everyone knew this but me. But in that, there is also confirmation. That the thinking is sound, that the reasoning isn't faulty. And then a tiny bit of joy that while, yes, it may be common knowledge, that my conclusions were my own. That no one told me. To think a thing through to the correct conclusion is a tiny bit of bliss.

Spiders with briefcases notwithstanding. ;)