It clung to the inside of the jar not understanding liberation. It was content above my bed, awaiting flies. I banged the Mason jar again on the door frame under the moth-flicked light, not out of kindness, I just didn't want squished spider in a tissue. Holding an empty jar, I called my dog back in, and shut the door.
I could say, not after Woody Allen's Scoop, after all that laughter and the 71 year old icon that he is despite the magic tricks, or the Life Salad at Fresh with organic carrots, beets, sprouts, spinach, lettuce, basil and a tahini dressing, or the mango, coconut milk and banana shake, or the fine Summer evening spent with a friend. I could say that the last time I tried to squish a spider it dropped fast onto my daughter's bed and disappeared. I could say it's because, well, that's just the chance a spider takes, and it lucked out tonight. But then it might have suffered a concussion being rudely knocked out of the Mason jar on the way down to the ground; I'll never know.
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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Brenda, I'm ashamed to say I'm guilty of the squished-tissue spider assassination but I've also done the compassionate jar thing. No matter how well I know that they are not interested in me at all and how much they deserve to live and how useful they are, the spiders and other small creepy crawlies and flying buzzing things are always, in my imagination, going to land on my head or in my clothes and do all sorts of poisonous stinging nasty things which will endanger my life and/or sanity and therefore I am obliged to swat them.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the spiders around here are occasionally interested in us, and there are many of them, so I tend to do the squished-tissue thing a lot. Makes me feel terribly un-buddhist every time.
ReplyDeleteOh, we're all spider-squishers! I'm okay with tissue squishing small ones; larger ones I prefer to vacuum up and stuff the tissue in the end of the hose so it can't get out. After the one that recently dropped down onto my daughter's bed and disappeared, and she wouldn't sleep there (who would?), and the vacuum too complicated and it too late, I thought the jar best. But the dang thing didn't want to leave the jar for the night air and freedom!
ReplyDeleteOh, Natalie, I really enjoyed your comment, the way it was written! The cadences of terrible things bugs can do, and the inevitable swat, or squish.
ReplyDeleteI admit I'm a silverfish squisher, though I apologize to them first. On the other hand, we let the spiders stay for their "natural insecticide" qualities. Protecting them from inquisitive cats is another matter....
ReplyDelete