Today’s accompanying tune: “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”
The rain swept into our little valley early Friday morning. Before the sun had a chance to rise over the mountains to our north, east, and south, the clouds descended and joined the fog off the glacial river to blanket us in dampness. I knew the tendrils of the clouds reached towards the top of the hill we live against and the seasonal stream that often washes out the gravel road to the house would be running, all without seeing. The winter — long, cold, dark — everyone had warned us about when we moved to the Pacific Northwest, was just about here.
The forecast calls for rain every day for at least the next two weeks, and it is likely we won’t dry out entirely until spring. There will be snow and ice, freezing temperatures and stiff winds. Trees will come down and the power will go out. Daylight will become a luxury and blue skies will lose their familiarity. Our waking hours will lose their typical sharpness and saturation in favor of the low-contrast days shrouded in mist. The birds will quiet, the bears will disappear into their dens, and the elk will huddle along the low grassy meadows nearer the river. A chance for all the beings tucked into our forest to breath, the calm, to slow. All, that is, except for one.
The arrival of the rains marks the end of another season here in the Pacific Northwest. One spoken about with fervor and fear. It does not contain itself to the forests or the ferns — it covers large swaths of the developed cities and expanding suburbs just as well as it does areas one might suspect feel a bit more natural. Wary residents carry sticks or swing their arms out in front of them, a peculiar march as they make their way down sidewalks or trails. The autumn sun drenches the leaves in abundant light, yet this season is marked only by what you feel.
I’m talking, of course, about spider season.
Each August, the male arachnids of the Northwest emerge from where ever they’ve been hiding out the rest of the year. The goal? To find a suitable mate. Seattle, Portland, and the forests of the two states become one large spider singles bar until the rain arrives, any time between mid-October and mid-November.
The desert had a similar season, though our spiders forgo the webs that cover the Northwest and prompt the humans to walk as if in a zombie movie. Due to their incredible size, the tarantulas and wolf spiders of the Mojave desert sought refuge underground in dens or burrows designed to hide them as they waited for prey to walk past. Each October, however, they began their journeys out of the den in search of suitable mates. Male tarantulas could walk tens of miles, up and over the sandy desert mountains, on their quest. They often struck out at night, but when times were desperate they were not unwilling to venture out in the daylight. It was not uncommon to see the casualties along trails frequented by mountain bikers or off-roaders — the little flat bodies subsumed into the sandy earth because of an unobservant human. For many earth-bound arachnids, the hero’s journey often ends in tragedy.
The smaller, lithe spiders of the Northwest have a different, though no less dangerous, tactic. They spin webs under eaves, across fences, between branches, on rear-view mirrors. They venture into hallways and doorways and pathways as their biological clocks tick down, down, down. In the kindest scenarios, they get scooped up in overturned glassware and relocated outdoors, where their likelihood of procreation increases compared to the sterile white glint of an indoor bathtub. In many others, they meet their ends under the crush of a paper towel or shoe sole. They know not the fear of the humans who find them running full tilt across their floors or those who wander through an impossibly large web. For a few weeks every year, the spiders are focused on one thing, and one thing only. They run the gauntlet, sidestepping the birds, amphibians, and rodents who are hunkering for an eight-legged snack. They dodge the wheels of cars, bikes, and skateboards. They fling their bodies into the wind, secured only by a strand of silk anchored to a branch unseen, with the hope of landing somewhere sympathetic or, at the very least, non-hostile. An action to which I’ve related more than once.
More than anything, though, they weave. They spin intricate webs to catch as much late-season food as possible. They set up webs anywhere and everywhere — between the roof and the garbage bin, along the inset of the window frame, along the doorknob that went unused overnight. Each day, the webs proliferate. What was untouched the day before is adorned in silk by morning. They twist around dead branches and leave their own trails outlined in strands only visible when the light hits them just right. If early-season rains descend on their creations, they build again once dry. They don’t let the destruction distract from their purpose, from their goal. They can’t, lest they miss out on their primary biological purpose. There’s no hope for offspring if they have nothing to eat upon hatching.
Some of the webs are architectural, a dream of perfect lines and angles. Some are what arachnologists helpfully describe as “chaotic,” with uneven lines connecting into what could be vaguely described as a circle by the more generous among us. Spiders will often sit at their webs’ center, using the tiny hairs covering their bodies to feel movements across the web with startlingly precise accuracy. It is how they eat, how they feel, how they choose a mate. It is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of their own bodies. The spiders expend an inordinate amount of energy creating and spinning silk fibers for their webs — to do so multiple times in a single season is at the spiders’ own risk. Still, they must, as the risk of not doing so ratchets even higher in the greater cosmic game. A life bet on a gamble.
It is not difficult to sympathize with our eight-legged neighbors, though some humans may find the exercise a little squirm-inducing. Instead of Halloween decor or the protagonist of nightmares, the spiders are providing abundant examples of continuing to build and continuing to create even when the odds appear insurmountable. Their existence relies on taking bold chances — ones that may very well end poorly. They know little of the world of humans yet thrive within their bounds when given the chance. It is an uncomfortable truce, one with staggeringly uneven dynamics, but it is one they must accept if they are to carry on. In the face of uncertainty, it is the spider who secures itself to the branch before leaping into the unknown, carried by a stiff breeze, a bit hope, and a sizable dose of desperation. Who amongst us hasn’t also done the same?
And so, as the rains arrive in force and the mercury drops, we say farewell to spider season. They will return again in August, though some hardy hangers-on will remain through the winter in well-protected enclaves. Some will hatch offspring and others will vow to do better next year. They will suffer and endure with the knowledge that, eventually, the sun will return to dry out all the rain. The itsy, bitsy spiders will, only then, climb up the spout again.
Here’s to following the examples nature has long placed in front of us.
- Megan