I love spring, when it first gets warm and before it gets hot, when I start my garden and hear the water running in the ditch at night. The only thing I hate about spring is the return of bug season. Especially spiders. I don’t want to hate any living things but try as I might I can’t help myself if they have eight legs and build webs.
I’ve killed 2 blackwidows on my porch in the last week. Last night a big furry spider jumped out of the cupboard when I opened it. They’re everywhere. In the bed room, bathroom and kitchen.
My first memory of a spiders was a black widow down my dad’s shirt. We lived in a very rural part of Southwestern Colorado. The nearest medical help was a half an hour away. I was four, my mom and baby brother were already in bed. Dad had let me stay up to play checkers with him. He felt something crawling on his back and carefully took his shirt off and asked my what it was. I said a round black spider. That was also the first time I made a phone call myself. My neighbors lived a mile up the washboard dirt road. He came and very carefully got the widow in a jar. They used it to educate me on recognizing this spider as being different from regular spiders. My dad knew that this was the one bug I needed to be able to identify on sight in a hurry.
My second spider memory is my brother and I playing with our firetruck on the front sidewalk. We had just gotten out of my mom’s impound lot in the basement. We were washing it with the hose. There was a little spider in one of the wheels we couldn’t get out. Mom started to wonder why we had been quiet so long and came to check. When she poked it out it was a black widow.
Another spider memory is waking up with a daddy long legs on my face when I was 8. We had just moved into a new house and were still sleeping on the floor. I know the daddy long legs is a harmless spider who eats flies and doesn’t hurt at all when it bites. I still screamed.
I wish I could count how many times I’ve walked through a web and had to clench my teeth. I’m not quite to the phobia level, I can face my fear, squish it or spray it or catch it and put it outside. But I still feel a little funny in my tummy.
Tags: fear, garden, spring, spiders, black widows, daddy long legs, bug season, checkers, walking through webs, phobia, bravery
