Bold and Beautiful Things

So this happened today.  Aragog has moved a little further from the house.  He is now starting from the corner of the house and tying out with ONE STRAND to the Loropetalum that sits across from the corner of the house in the flowerbed.  He is very skilled, and I continue to be amazed with his intricate designs.  I suppose as long as he stays there, and I keep “limboing lower now” under where he attached his web to the bush, we’ll all be okay.

Here’s the thing that I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around all day long.  The very thing that sustains Aragog is the thing that transforms and ultimately destroys the web he worked so diligently on. And then he has to start over, and he usually moves on to another spot. That’s powerful.  And hard.

Are we like that too?  Do we need the things that we work so hard on, those things we throw ourselves into, to be transformed or destroyed so we will actually move? Move to do something bigger and better and bold, like hang our whole well-being and existence on one well-placed strand of webbing?  When things we work hard on are destroyed, do we have what it takes to begin again?

I have not lost my arachnophobic ways.  I found a small spider crawling across the floor this evening.  He was crawling IN MY HOUSE.  My house, my rules.  And that’s all I have to say about that.  But I am beginning to respect Aragog; he must be doing all right for himself because he seems to be getting bigger.  BIGGER.  But he’s also being bold.  He started out with a much smaller web just over my front door, and now his web and all its connecting lines are stretching out at least four times as large as the original.  That one strand thing is blowing my mind.  How strong it must be.  Well played my bold friend.  Well played.

And by tonight it was gone.  Between the breakfast, lunch, and supper he caught earlier and the  breeze blowing and the neighbor child who came up and used one finger to break the link with the bush (that took my breath away for a moment, I’m not kidding–I was NOT happy), it was all but gone by the time the sun settled down behind the copse of trees.

Seeing Aragog begin again each morning this week has given me hope.  I know, weird, considering how I feel about spiders.  But the fact that he can begin again each and every day and NOT GIVE UP, though he must be extremely tired, THAT is the stuff that movies with great soundtracks are made of.  You know, the ones that have you cheering on the character who, by all rights, should be curled up in the fetal position because he or she has been through so much.  But no.  There he/she goes again, picking him/herself up and starting again.  With one strong strand hooked to the Loropetalum, slowly but steadily working step by step in the dark of night.  When things are the darkest, he or she finds what it takes to begin anew.  And to do bold and beautiful things, no matter how fleeting they may be.

That right there.  That’s what I want my story to look like.