Old Cobwebs: Melinda Jean

2008 November 15

Old cobwebs were the best sign of a good corner, "The older the better," saying to herself while shopping for a new place to spin and weave, the exhausting dance of a whole day in which after she would rest and wait; pray for prey. Nurishment, that rush of energy in the body. The natual high, there was nothing like it, still at the top of her lifetime loves. Another was the product of her particular weave. If found outside, a winter morning web can take on the glistening light through tiny spheres of water, sometimes the light enough to blind her delicate seeing mechanisms. She prided herself on these works of art not only because of their beauty, but because of their brevity, as one fly caught and the web ruined, time to move on again.
Another of her blessings she found was in the perspective being offered by height. Oh sure she was fearful of heights and remembered being a big clustered ball of brothers and sisters and worried about the fall, the decent. What if her web didn't catch and she'd fall to her death. Her mother would reassure her that she was so light she'd probably would land fine. This childhood fear haunted her and the only reassurance was ironically in being that high seeing the movement of life below her. She often felt it must be what a bird feels like when its flying; and then as she rested in her new web feeling heavier than her more youthful self, she wondered about the decent. The fall, would that be like flying? Could that offer some new perspective? As she looked at her beautiful creation and smiled she lifted her body to the bottom of the web and let go. Careful to not spindle any web, but to allow herself a weighty decent.