Spiders and the Tangled Webs They Weave

Have you ever walked through a spider web? Maybe you were just strolling along, minding your own business when all of a sudden you feel that sticky tug somewhere on your body? It's pretty gross, I know, but just stick with me. (No pun intended.) Then after you have collided with the web, you can suddenly see all the little strands connecting you to thousands of different places. Usually there are so many that you wonder how you missed the web in the first place?

My mind works like a spider web. There is a web of thousands of strong, undetectable connections between thoughts and I frequently, unwittingly collide into it. The smell of stargazer lilies* reminds me of the carpet in my first apartment and a flower shop in New Orleans with dirty windows and a tile floor at some funeral home and things that are soft like petals and a really good backstretch. There is no logical reason why that smell would trigger the recall of half of those things but those spiders have diligently formed bonds between these ideas. They are shortcuts from somewhere mundane to nowhere special.

But every once in a while that nearly-invisible string will lead to somewhere with meaning. Somewhere very private because it is so tender with feeling that even when you want to share it, there is no way to make someone else feel exactly like you feel. Others can only take a mental picture of how you feel and label it "sad" or "angry" or "forgiveness" or "caution" and then maybe have their own private feeling about it which can later be connected with sticky silk to Tuesdays or your sweater or laugh lines or something stuck in between teeth.

Well here is a very private thought of mine: I am surprised by all the things that remind me of that little puppy that I lost.

I expected the quality of the thoughts (sad, helpless, frustrated) and their magnitude (not mild - I am an emotional person - but tempered by logic and memories of stronger sadnesses) but I am shocked by their quantity. At least twenty things a day remind me of him.

Those little spiders had been hard at work connecting him to lots of different thoughts. But as with a real spider web after you walk through it enough times it breaks, and then those busy little spinnerets get to work building new crossroads in the gaping hole. So I hope no one labels that thought I had as "sad" or "pathetic" or "over-sentimental" because I know it is somewhat temporary just like most sadness.

The spiders that live in my mind
Are diligent and unkind.
Taking me places that, make my heart ache.
But they do it too often and soon those bonds break.

*Which you may have learned I love if you read about my boyfriend orientation.