The Spider On My Porch

Listen to the audio here: https://venture-within.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Spider.m4a

She appeared one morning a few weeks before Christmas. Bulbous, but near-missable and centered in mid-air at eye height. Her web, perhaps not the biggest I’ve encountered on my travels through jungly, remote spaces, but the biggest web I’ve seen here in Nicaragua.In truth, the biggest web I’ve ever discovered in an abode of mine.

Spanning nearly 4 feet wide and possibly 4 feet high, her web was artfully cast between my cane roof, the wooden pole centered at the edge of my porch, the wooden floor below, and the slack black straps of my TRX, hanging from the roof to the left. Her web took up the entirety of this space, close to perfect upon inspection, her octagonal design ready for trapping.

Most might have taken a broom to the thing, destroyed her creation, destroyed her, and gone on with their day. There was a time when I was this person — terrified of spiders beyond reason. Crazed by their sight, or simply knowing a spider was near, lurking in a corner of the room but lost to my view. I could not sleep or calm.

I’ve been known to eject myself from moving cars, igniting pandemonium in drivers and other passengers. I would destroy living rooms in the dead of night, toppling furniture in the dark and chaotically thrusting vacuum cleaners…