Welcome To The Bedroom
My life has been spinning in a stressful number of directions of late –mostly positive, some I could do without, but just so many it is a tad overwhelming– so I have seriously neglected writing. I have missed it, and my recent creative outlet has been to snap quick photos while out and about. I seem to find ‘pests’ fascinating –flowering weeds, mushrooms, insects, and in this case arachnids. I took this photo a week ago, and it is one of my favorites from this summer.
My friend’s mother passed a few days ago, after a 97 year life. And while it was expected, it still hit hard, and my friend is grieving. To make her laugh, I shared a fond memory I have of ‘Mo’, as her mother is called by grandchildren, giving me marriage advice. It did indeed make my friend laugh, and she asked if I could write down the tale for her. I needed some visual inspiration to write my memories of the lovely mother that just passed, and the spider caught my attention on my photo scroll.
I spotted the spiderweb in my back garden, spun between massively overgrown forsythia. I was coming back from some errand/walk/project (see above stressful number of things) and it was late morning. The sun was just overhead, and caught the still glistening morning dew on the strands. And low there she sat, dead center.
It was very hard to focus the image because the wind was blowing things every which way, and my phone camera wasn’t quite up to the job. I took a few pictures, crouching low and holding very still. Eventually the spider noticed me and scurried off to the edges of her web, curling up into a nondescript black dot. This was my favorite of the snaps: I love the upside down position of the critter, the angles of her green legs with the forsythia in the background, and the dew catching the light. Time to look her up, as I hadn’t in the last week (op cite ‘stressful list’).
She is an orchard orbweaver spider (Leucauge venusta) which is a lovely name. They are described online as often found hanging upside down at the center of an orb web in wooded areas or gardens. I had not known of these spiders, and this is one very cool creature. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024
The female orchard orbweaver spins a new web each day, a classic Halloween-style web, circular with radiating spokes (the males do not spin webs which does make one wonder what they eat). And fascinatingly, each spider’s web is unique, like a fingerprint, such that those studying them can identify which spider made what web by the design created. The spider is nocturnal, and the web has an iridescent sheen to it. This allows light to catch insects’ attention in the dark. The orchard orbweaver senses vibrations in her web, using these to determine which caught insect to avoid – angry bees – and which to prey upon – flies and the like. Most fascinating of all, orchard orbweavers eat their own web each evening. After digesting the web, the silk is stored as liquid in internal silk glands, then used again in the spinning of the next day’s web. So many lovely thoughts spun from this beauty!
My friend’s mother, Mo, was a woman I also related to through the needlecrafts we shared. She publishing knitting and quilting instruction books, me being a knitter and quilter. Thirty five years ago my friend arranged for me to meet with Mo at a craft convention in Chicago where she was vending. I had been mulling the idea creating a quilting business, an industry she had been working in for many years. She wanted me to think about the consequences of turning my quilting into a business, pointing out what was a lovely, creative ‘hobby’ might lose its joy for me as a business. Mo was speaking to my art, not my commercial viability, and it was a realization that I appreciated. My sewing skills are tied to memories of my mother and grandmother, with the inheritance of those arts as part of my DNA. My quilting work remains a source of relaxation, creativity and quiet accomplishment, but not a lot of commercial success. I am envious of quilters that can do both, but I appreciated Mo’s recognition that I may not be the type who could.
I wouldn’t see Mo often over the many years of my friendship with her daughter, but one visit was memorable – I think likely for my friend’s wedding. I was with Mo in the family room of her home with her husband, Poppy, busy in the kitchen preparing gravlax. Mo told me that early in her marriage, she informed Poppy he needed to ‘choose a room’. I could, she says, be excellent in the kitchen – learn to cook and bake and make lovely meals. Or, she says, I could excel in the living room, a social person hosting parties with banter and knowledge. Finally, she says, I can be excellent in the bedroom…with all that entails. But, dear husband, I can only be successfully in one room, so take your pick.
The lovely orchard orbspider, is the visual that inspired words to flow while I spun the memories I had of Mo. The spider weaves day in and day out, and her place in the world is one of beauty. Mo, who created knitting patterns but was not much of a knitter, enjoyed things that were unusual and had a power in her life that was hard to miss. I have a treasured photo of my daughter pouting in a knitting instruction book published by Mo – who saw a beautiful little girl being a grumpy curmudgeon, and saw the charm in including it in the published book. I treasure the memories and the quirkiness involved in the choice Mo made, and am endlessly grateful for her daughter being in my life. I will not tie the sweet orchard orbspider to which choice Poppy selected of the 3 room options, so you, dear reader, will be left hanging by a thread.