Perseverance

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.