by Kim Michael Copyright April 2015
Argiope aurantia is the technical name for them. They are large spiders that live in
gardens. I personally don’t like
spiders. I’m not alone. On the list of human phobias Wikipedia lists arachnophobia
(fear of spiders) is prevalent in nearly 90% of all females and 18% of all
males, of which I am one, which is what makes this story even more unlikely.
I have an herb
garden in my backyard. I have never been
an avid gardener, but I like fresh herbs.
To my dismay one day I found a huge web stretched between the only rosemary
bush I had planted and a dill plant that I had let grow to long.
In the center
of the web was a huge black spider with yellow spots on its back. I remember it being slightly smaller than half
the size of my hand, but in retrospect it was probably smaller, but still large
enough to be intimidating.
My first thought was to get a stick
and destroy the web, but when I finally found something I could use, I found
myself curiously interested in the spider, not an uncommon phenomenon, to be
drawn to something that you fear.
When I got closer to look at it, it
scurried for cover. I had already
decided not to get rid of the web or kill the spider, but of course, the spider
didn’t know that.
My first thought was, if I was
actually going to try to cohabitate with this creature, I wanted to make sure
that it wasn’t poisonous. I looked it up
on the Internet and found out that the spider wasn’t dangerous like a Brown
Recluse or a Black Widow, and that it was actually beneficial for my garden,
killing the bugs that would ultimately hurt my plants. I also discovered that it was female. Probably the strangest of all was that
spiders only have two basic emotions, fear and anger. They don’t become tame regardless of what
people who have pet Tarantulas may think.
At best they are only lethargic.
At any rate that is where my
relationship (so to speak) with an Argiope Aurantia began. Because she was in my rosemary bush, I called
her Rosie. In the days that followed when
I worked in the garden I would occasionally talk to her, and as time progressed
my tongue-in-cheek, one-sided conversations became more frequent.
As weeks passed, I found myself actually
bonding with the spider, not in the way that dogs or cats bond with humans, spiders
do not have that capacity, but Rosie seemed to become less timid of me. She got to a point where I could get very
close to her and she would not run away.
As I lost my fear of her, I began to see
the beauty in her, her glistening black body, brilliant yellow spots. I found her stunning. For a brief period I even toyed with the idea
of trying to touch her and I came close a couple of times, but in the end I realized
that she was a creature of the wild and some things are not meant for human
interaction.
Then one day I noticed that she
seemed to be growing larger. At first I
thought Rosie was thriving in her new home, but then I realized the truth. Rosie was pregnant and about to lay her
eggs.
Over the next few days I made it a
point to go out every day and look in on her, not that I know anything about
pregnant spiders, but I was becoming protective of her. Then one day I went out to see her… and she
was gone. The web looked conspicuously empty
and so did my herb garden. After another
day had passed the sad realization started to dawn on me that I would probably
never see Rosie again. The truth was I
missed her. For several days more I
looked for her, but she never reappeared.
That weekend as I weeded the herb box I found her body, no longer thick
and beautiful, she lay curled up, shriveled and still. Rosie was dead.
For a moment I sat back on my knees
looking at her, eyes misting with emotion, a grown man feeling strangely sad for
the loss of all things, a “spider”. It
was an odd feeling, but one I still remember.
Yet as I looked at her I felt my spirits lift. I realized that Rosie had become what nature
had intended her to become and that she achieved what she was meant to do. How many of us can claim such a legacy?
That day, I buried her remains at the
base of the rosemary bush where her web had been and silently thanked her. Rosie was gone, but the memory of Rosie, and
what she had taught me, continues on.
And as I sat there I suddenly had to smile, in her place Rosie had left
me a virtual swarm of “little” Rosies crawling up and down the dill and rosemary
plants.
Since those days there have been a
number of Rosies in my herb patch, and I have always made room for them, and
though none has ever been as beautiful as Rosie, each became unique and
different in its own way and each became what nature had intended. Rosie, a spider, had opened my eyes to
possibilities that I had not considered before.
I still don’t care for spiders, but I
appreciate them, I understand them, and the fear I once had of them has changed
to something else…perhaps wonder. Rosie
in her own way had an impact on my life and made an unlikely friend along the
way.
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