Spiders I Have Worn

On the Utility of the Spider Stick in July

I see now how often what I chose to write about in my haphazard weekly posting here is often related to where we are on the current calendar.

And so now I'm seeing clouds or hearing frogs or smelling the woods in mid-July and that grounds my thoughts in time. This time. I’ve been here 76 times before on the terrestrial turning tilting time-table.

The calendar is a framework on which to build stories and memories, and perhaps, meaning. And so I add more to my Julys as each comes, grafted onto and into the ones that have come before, to curate and tell myself the story of summers from a life/time.

I walk in the Lenoir Woods every morning on my quick measured mile before sunup. It is so hard for me to keep a steady pace in a forest, as anyone who ever walks with me will tell you. There are far too many temptations. The destination can wait.

It seems violation of respect to speed-walk past living things that ought to be paid more attention, at a slower frame rate and for more moments. I am torn between my disciplined, rigid, timed task and hoping for an AHA moment in the woods alone. Stopping to smell the rose more often wins than loses.

And so every morning for the past week, my pace has been broken because, to begin the wooded part of my route, I first have to find a spider stick. And if you already know what I'm talking about, you are my people. But I will explain for the uninitiated.

A walk down even a wide path this time of year (apparently in the mid-west as back in the Southern Appalachians) and you will regularly be spitting spider web and whacking at the brim of your cap (or eyebrows) to flip away the wee bugger of a thing that sticks to your finger and creeps you out.

If you are an exception to this rule, also my people (though I admit to some reflexive repugnance when a small spiny spider dangles from my glasses).

And so, to limit the number of enthreadments per mile of trail this time of year, you must pluck off a small branch to serve as a spider stick. Spicebush is a good choice, as it is quite brittle when green and also smells nice. Yellow birch, same properties.

The designated leader du jour walks ahead a bit, holding aloft the twiggy protection that, if consistently wielded left-right-left at a range of heights varied every few paces, will minimize--if not prevent--your wearing a spider home as a hood ornament. Technique matters.

But know that occasionally one will still break through, no matter what. You'll never discover how. But they know.

And so I am here, now, to celebrate the spiders of summers-past. They occupied my walks but also my interest in their daily lives, often including their dazzling overnight webs in the wet pasture, at local sun-up, back home in Virginia.

It was pasture spiders of daybreak that were most photogenic and often the subject of my portraiture with the camera du jour.

The morning light on Goose Creek could not have been better, where the east ridge cast a blanket of shadow behind the glistening threads of spider-craft--glowing fiber optics set against black velvet of the morning.

The last night's dew would often reveal the otherwise-invisible snare and wonderfully catch and hold the light if the winds were slight.

And finally, to my point: To share a few from the many webs woven over my lifetime of summers. Perhaps there are more threads ahead. Who knows?