A season in spiderwebs:
July, Sean calls me away from my desk: An orb weaver is working a marvel, throwing line from the cedar tree to the weeping cherry, a span of more than a meter. We stand and watch it, iridescent, nimble and deliberate, triangulating points of contact, moving methodically as time, laddering precise rungs between radiating lines. It is busy all afternoon, and the finished web is perfect. It sits in the center, and I hope it is pleased. When we look for it the next day, though, it's gone.
August: Nights and mornings, we walk to river. Its surface is a low, slow, late-summer fizz of insect life. Bats stutter-flap from bank to bank, and spiders claim the space between iron struts and wooden rails of the old train bridge. There are at least two different species we observe squatting at the center of the biggest webs—both thumb-sized, one mostly body, another, mostly leg. Their strong constructions last the week, gradually filling with unlucky gnats and flies. We never spot the smaller spiders that make the more beautiful webs; these hang lower and catch the dew, a fairy-tale netting of water and light.
September, sitting on the couch: I realize almost all of the living-room windows are filmed with old webs, greying the light. Leaves and dried flies bunch in the corners. I go outside with an old broom. The webs catch and twist in the bristles, a grey, sticky cloud like hell's cotton candy.
Last week, walking the dog, sun slanting sharply from the east: the narrowest laser-bright gleam. I stop to look; it vanishes. One step back, and it reappears. A foot or so of delicate line, suspended in space, like a crack in space repaired with microns of gold. One solitary thread of spider silk. Looking up, down, and around, I could not figure out how it was attached or what it was for. It felt like a miracle that it was there at all, and that I was there to see it.
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Related: "Spider and I"
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A low-key everyday outfit inspired by the noncolor/color of spiderwebs and dusk and dew:
J. Crew Carolyn sweater (just bought this; I'm not normally a J. Crew shopper, but it is the exact color of the October fog in the river valley) / Madewell x Kaihara jeans / Amiacalva Easy Bag / Heureu Plegada shoes in grey / Maria La Rosa laminated socks / Victorian sterling and ivory fly stud earrings / Susan Hable ebony love knot / Cirque Siren nail polish (Cirque is my favorite, though I have been enjoying some colors by Manicurist Paris lately).
