And Along Came a Spider
A Photograph, a Memory, and another Tangled Web
SUBJECT: Funnel Web Spider
LOCATION: Floyd County Virginia, Landscape plantings
DATE: early summer, 2022
CAMERA: Apple iPhone 12Pro
EVENT: Taking the air, yet another sunrise
In the cool of the morning--after daylight but before full sunrise--I did nothing in particular but enjoy the respite from the heat that would come soon enough.
I gathered some random tools from where I'd dropped them the day before; pulled the garden hose to the edge and out from under foot; and listened to the chorus of a half-dozen songbirds, already at work proclaiming their territories.
As the sun crested the tops of the pines along our border, I noticed at least three rather impressive spider webs draped across the sprawling branches of a juniper just off the side porch. Each web was pierced by a yawning black hole--the tunnel for which this spider is noted and named. And at the entrance of one, the hungry occupant stood guard, and stood fast--not retreating immediately as they will do if they feel threatened.
ALWAYS A CAMERA IN MY POCKET
Like so many of us these days, I carry a camera with me whenever I'm wearing pants. And I usually do. Left pocket. Automatic reflexive motion. Pull down, select camera icon; compose, focus, adjust light, move closer. CLICK. Back in the holster.
Later in the day, as intensely warm as I had anticipated, I pulled up this shot from my phone, already synced from device to desktop computer. On the big screen, the details popped: the bristles on all the legs; the pollen specks that foiled the ploy of invisibility and made this spider's trap visible enough that it drew my attention and would possibly wave off potential in-between-meal snacks. Not bad for a pocket telephone.
And that's all. Just a nature shot on a random morning. An ordinary funnel web spider—a species found in every US state and commonly around the world. Except...
And this is where you should feel free to click away and be drawn back into your own webs of interest, thought and memory while I trail off into my own, this image having been the trigger. You were warned.
OTHER SPIDERS I HAVE KNOWN
SUBJECT: Funnel Web spider
LOCATION: JC Campbell Folk School, western NC
DATE: fall 2003
CAMERA: Nikon Coolpix 990 (2mp images)
EVENT: Nature Writing Workshop taught by Elizabeth Hunter
And so, as often happens, an image or a sound or a smell from the present moment sends me back, following the threads of memory and association with places and people, with the who and where and what I was all about "back then" at the instant the shutter grabbed the image. My 35k photographs are a veritable Time Machine, in each is a story.
The Cliff Notes Version
In the spring of 2002, I got my first digital camera and started a weblog. At last, I had access to a platform for image-based natural history essays. I could share them with anybody in the world in an instant. I was thrilled to be part of the new citizen journaling call blogging.
I could tell the story behind the image, and telling these stories to myself would become a daily ritual, a way of leaving a trail of personal narrative, with pictures. Lots of pictures--not very large or very clear in the early days of digital photography (as you see here) but low-friction to share with readers, who might somehow find my digital outpost from the hinterlands of Appalachia.
WRITE TO THE IMAGE
By 2003, I was feeling like "a writer" at least by habit. I lacked confidence and clarity, so I asked for help. Someone pointed me towards the Highlands Summer Writing Workshop at Radford University. The instructor was Prof Emeritus Jack Higgs. We became friends and he my mentor.
He asked me about my writing goals and I was at a loss. So he asked "Whose writing do you admire or want to write like?" And I mentioned Elizabeth Hunter, contributing editor for Blue Ridge Country magazine. I always enjoyed her articles and appreciated her research and style.
Jack’s face lit up. "Why, I have beer and pizza with Elizabeth every couple of months" he said. "She's teaching a nature-writing workshop at JC Campbell in October. You should go."
I did. We had field assignments one afternoon--a kind of scavenger hunt that sent us off into the hills to find our assigned object. Mine was to "find and photograph a funnel-web spider.” You see it in the image above. Not great, but sufficient to trigger this story I've inflicted on you this morning.
Elizabeth and I became friends.
She recruited me a few months later to contribute some photos and text for an article she had in the works about Liz and Ed Mabry of Mabry's Mill--the most photographed spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is not far from our current home, where the funnel-web spider resides.
My puny little camera in those days was not up to the task, the images not large enough for printing in a slick color magazine. I had recently met photo-journalist Doug Thompson. He generously offered me the loan of his Nikon D70 until mine (on order) would arrive.
I spent the day in Meadows of Dan with Doug's camera, snooping around, inquiring about the Mabrys. Elizabeth needed shots of their church, their gravestones and any "local color" I could offer for a sidebar to the article.
I am amazed to find that the piece from July, 2004, still lives (in part) on the web, including a couple of my photos you can see, including local character Ben Harris.
I'd stopped at the local feed-and-seed and asked "who know the most about the Mabrys?" and they called Ben. He hobbled up to the store and we had a wide-ranging conversation, some of which was recorded in the now-forgotten sidebar.
And so you just never know what new stimulus will trigger a thread of connection that pulls another thread, that over the decades weaves a web that has become my story. With pictures.
The Mabrys of Mabry Mill - Blue Ridge Country July 2004 by Elizabeth Hunter
Here is a guide to spiders by state, now that you are paying attention. https://usaspiders.com/
It was good to read about the Mabrys. And I always loved your spider web photos years ago, outlined in dewdrops.