Jon And The Spider

I heard Jon call to me from inside the bathroom.  He was brushing his teeth but pointed to the corner by the bathtub.  “Spider rescue,” he said.  I used a piece of toilet paper to gently scoop up the spider and bring her outside.

“Things sure have changed,” I said to Jon.  “You used to just step on spiders.”

Jon told me that he can’t kill spiders anymore.  He blamed it on me.  He’d never thought of not killing any bug until he met me.  But it’s only recently that does’t want to kill them.

While Jon showered, I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the back porch.  The vase with the dried roses that have been next to the chair I blog in, was on the table next to me.  Jon had taken it out of the house the day before to take pictures of the roses.

That’s when he first saw the spider.

The spider came up from the vase and sat in strands of web between  the roses.  Jon talked to the him, and even took his picture. And he was actually a bit worried when the spider went back into the vase.  “What if he’s stuck and can’t get out of the vase?” he asked me.

I told Jon about the spider in my studio window.  The same kind as the one in the vase.  They make their web like a tunnel and hide there until a bug lands in their web vibrating it enough for the spider to come out and eat it.

As I sipped my tea I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.  A single spiders leg stretched out of the top of the vase exploring.  But as soon as I put my cup back on the table, the leg disappeared back into the vase.

I sat there a while and the spider didn’t come back out.

Not until Jon did.

As soon as Jon sat down across from me, the spider came out of the vase.  Unafraid, he walked up his web, then sat there while Jon talked to him and took his picture.

A moment later Zip was on the table and the three of them were having a good time.  Jon taking pictures, Zip rolling on his back looking for a scratch and the spider just hanging out.

“It’s a bit Witchey, don’t you think?”  I said to Jon.  “You a black cat and a spider?”

Jon’s still trying to figure the spider thing out.

But it doesn’t really surprise me.  Just like with Zip, I think the spider is one of Jon’s familiars.  The spider presented himself and Jon welcomed him into his life.  Just like with Zip there are some limitation.  No biting being one of them.

Since they are symbols of creativity spiders are the perfect familiar for a writer and photographer.  But they’re also symbols of resilience and adaptability.  When a spiders web is broken, they just go about repairing it.

That certainly reminds me of Jon.

I can see what Jon is learning from making a connection with this spider,  he’s written about it on his blog.  That made me wonder what the spider is getting out of it.

One thing that I can see is that Jon isn’t going to kill this spider or any other spider, even though he’s had some very bad reactions to spider bites.  And maybe his writing about it will prevent some other spiders from being squashed by humans.

In my mind, that makes this relationship even bigger than just the two of them.  As if they’ve come together at just the right time to work their magic on each other and anyone else who wants to listen.