I love spider webs.
When I was a kid, I remember huge webs in our vegetable gardens, the painstaking labor of the big black and yellow garden spiders inevitably resting in the very center of their work.
I didn’t get too close – I wasn’t all that fond of the actual spider…especially all those legs – but I admired their art from a safe and respectful distance.
This year a mid-sized orange and brown spider has set up shop at the end of the clothesline next to our house. I think she lives inside the clothesline case – that roundish thing protruding from the shingles in the top right of the picture.
Most mornings she’s got a brand-new, nearly flawless web strung from the clothesline to the house, and I try to hang clothes gently so as not to stress her out. I also leave a bunch of space between the last article of clothing and her web. It’s hard to tell exactly where the longer strands of web are anchored, and I would really feel awful if my hanging a wet sock too close ended up ruining all her efforts.
Of course, by the end of the day the web is battle-scarred. There are a few tiny flies stuck to the strands, and big gaping holes. Sometimes the web isn’t even a web any more – just a few shabby strings of silk, dusty and grayish.
Until the next morning.
I’ve been working on a project lately, trying to figure out a way to make it work, to make the finished product match the way I’ve envisioned it.
It’s frustrating, trying to get from where I am now to where I want to be. Lots of trial and error, lots of having to tear down and rebuild.
But I try to stay positive. The tearing down and rebuilding is all part of the creative process. Something you have to either accept or go find something else to do.
I don’t want to do something else, so I gather up my ragged strands and begin again.
I’ve never heard the spider complain.
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