Said the spider to the fly
Lest you think this is going to be a discourse on the dangers of flattery, let me be clear: it is not.
First, writers are deprived creatures, desperately seeking praise yet rarely receiving it. If by some happy accident a compliment is inadvertently tossed our way, we’ll cling to it, of course. But at the same time we’re prone to disbelieving it.
Second, the only reason I couldn’t resist quoting a 19th-century poem for the subtitle of this piece is because walking into spiderwebs has become a very common daily occurrence for me. As I stare cross-eyed at my nose, trying to swat the sticky threads and fly bits away from my face, I curse my latest up-close-and-personal experience with the lush Massachusetts woods I now call home.
Why oh why, I moan, did we move away from Montana? In our old state, so aptly named Big Sky Country, only a very talented spider could spin a web across the trail between giant orange-trunked Ponderosa Pines. I can count on one hand the times I walked into one. Or maybe two hands or four, but the point is they felt like singular events, not part of a continuous tapestry of large-leaved foliage, dense shrubbery, fungus, insects, and arachnids of all sorts.
In Montana, I only had to open my eyes to see the view. And what a view it was: down valleys with distant-purpled hills, up to jagged soaring peaks, along glinting lakes and rivers, their ripples punctuated only by the pop of a solitary fish, thunderheads billowing ever higher in that massive sky despite their heavy load.
In Montana, my goals were as gigantic as my surroundings. I would conduct critical ecological research. I would secure a spot on the national AKC agility team and compete at Worlds. I would publish traditionally and connect with an audience of thousands – not merely for one book, but for many. In every venture of mine, I’d win major awards and make a difference to the world. Pretty ridiculous expectations, and needless to say, I didn’t accomplish any of them. It’s embarrassing, but here I am, forcing myself to lay everything out. I’ve changed a lot compared to the me of three years ago, and I’d like to know why.
When we moved to Massachusetts (yes, I finally learned how to spell it without cheating), the most obvious change was the distance between things. Trees grow fast and close, shrubs and herbs even more so, hills are sometimes steep but always tiny, like a rollercoaster at a little kids’ theme park, and the birds and the ticks plentiful. Living things are not only dense, but diverse. Just yesterday, I counted ten native tree species all competing for resources on the small rise next to our house. Oak, beech, pine, sassafrass, hickory, dogwood, birch, cedar, hemlock, and maple, not to mention viburnum, sumac, and a whole bunch of non-native vines.
With this new closeness has come a big shift in my own outlook on life. Some of it’s probably due to getting older, but one thing is for sure: my goals have shrunk as dramatically as my views. I no longer attend conferences and workshops with the same fervor I once had for connecting with professionals in the industry. I just want to write, edit, and write again, trying over and over to bring details to life with words. I no longer compete in dog agility, and in fact don’t even have any of my own equipment anymore. I still walk my dog, yes, but I don’t walk with the purpose of getting to a high summit where I can see the spread of the earth far below, or even to reach a remote mountain lake for a dip of the toes in cold water and the sense of accomplishment that it brings. Now, I walk not only with my dog, but like my dog. We are tuned in to the minutiae of the moment: the soft padding of steps on the trail, the white-and-purple orchid petals beneath the green briar, the whisk of an osprey’s wings across a small brown pond, the bleating of lambs in the field, the rush of wind in the trees, the dappled light that appears more green than yellow.
Am I happy? Well, I don’t know that anyone can achieve true happiness, at least not for long. But I do feel a certain sense of peace with myself. An acceptance that my future may never hold the achievements I once hungered for. I still allow myself a modicum of hope now and then, and I try not to get too frustrated.
Except when I blunder into yet another spiderweb…
Happy Tales!
