A Living Magazine - Day 134 - Spider Nature and the Multitool

My camp spot had been filled with tiny spiders. I like spiders, small, medium and large ones. I understand other people are repulsed by them. I think they realize (whether they admit it or not) that this aversion is most likely an artificial response from childhood parents who passed on their own dislike, or the stupid memes of an ignorant culture.

There are so many memes, urban legends and wives tales about the supposed horror these innocent creatures apparently foist upon humanity, that I could pull out my most verbose wordage in their defense, even write a book on it and nothing would change the view of arachnophobes. So, instead I simply do my part to never intentionally harm a single one of them. I save them all the time from drowning, or falling into a situation they cannot escape from. They are the natural insecticide in nature. I see my own rejection by people in their rejection by people.

When I awoke, I saw this little guy sipping drops of condensation off my mango juice can. I like how he is right over Maine...       

I say "guy" and "he", because it is a male. Males are generally smaller than females and can easily be identified by the pedipalps--the leg-like structures at the front of the body that contain specialized taste and smell organs in all spiders; in a mature male they will be swollen with sperm. Seen side by side, females look markedly different due to the lack the appropriately named, copulatory or palpal bulb (usually dark or black in color).

In the first sleep spot (only about ten feet away) having the tent door open for just the amount of time to put the fly/tarp on, sit down inside and remove my boots, about six spiders half the size of the one shown above set up their own camps at the very top part of the inner screen. Unlike the irrational fears of poor little humans (being millions of times larger than the spider above) and Hollywood fiction, spiders hate our presences and are much more repelled by us than we are of them. A wiff of human breath sends them to the smallest, darkest, farthest corner away from the source of that breath.

People also say that spiders spool down and "bite" them at night. Not true. If you are bitten by a small spider (like the one above--which is incredibly unlikely), it is because it has no choice. You are about to kill it by rolling over, or whatever. It (like snakes below the size of constrictors, for example) are NOT out to get you. I slept peacefully that night, while my little friends caught the tiny flies and mosquitoes that entered the tent at the same time the spiders did.

In the morning I took a piece of folded paper and gently removed each spider, dropping it out onto the leaf bed, before shaking out the tent. On this morning it was easy to tip this little guy out into the leaves.

Each morning I was in this spot, the sun glistened everywhere off all of the silk from spiders who had floated from tree to tree over night. It was beautiful. It is a blessing to behold such things. We are so separated from nature at this point that we call genuine beauty, "gross". I have to choose my battles on this blog. And god-knows there are plenty to choose from.

When I experience nature, its creatures and its plants, every day out here, I am steadily more and more dismayed with how it has been marred, both physically and reputationally. But, fighting for these things is seen as boring, passe, PC, blah, blah, blah. Until our minds have changed, as a species, there is virtually no hope for my own ability to make headway in this regard. So, I will wait, watch, and continue to do my own small part to preserve what I love in nature. And, you can do and say whatever ya'll want about it.

I got everything packed up and took this picture of the fly/tarp before stuffing it into ole "Saggy"...

There are three parallel avenues that lead downtown: (1) Illinois, (2) Meridian and (3) Capitol. I took Capitol on this day and walked past my favorite crabapple tree; filled to overflowing with tart, sweet, unblemished apples. I filled my pockets greedily, but didn't make a dent...

Check that picture out!

This tree is fifteen feet high and has a branched footprint of fifteen feet in diameter. It has approximately (and, yes, I did the math!) 8,000 small, delicious apples. When I ever have my one sacred acre and tiny cottage in Maine, I will gather sprigs from all across the country--not apples but crabapples (they are actually the same thing; "apples", simply being larger cultivated crabapples that suit the markets of the world--thank Johnny Appleseed), and grow every variety I can--a wallker can dream, can't he?

I had a mission on this day: Get new insoles (foam and silicone at Wal-Mart). The Supercenter was about 8 miles away, and there was no way in hell I was going to spend the whole day walking there and back. So, for the first time in Indianapolis I used the city bus, and was glad I did. But first was a stop at the library to touch base at Facebook, and processed and transferred some photos...

Ice spilled out on the library lawn from the wedding the night before.

I sometimes wish I'd had just a cup full on my hottest walks,

up through California over the summer,

and there in front of me was a bucket full, melting in the sun... 

Taken while waiting for the number 10A bus at the Capitol and Idaho bus station.

Taken through the window--echoes of my bridge art photos from Spokane, Washington.

The bus ride to Wal-Mart.

I am positively phobic of spending money. I ONLY buy what I need. I have been hungry for days on end so many times that I have run out of fingers and toes to count them. I was planning to spend no more than $20.00 on insoles, food for two days, and a new multitool. I got all the other items and then looked at multitools. There was a small one for $5.96, and one like I used to have and accidentally lost in Portland, Oregon, for $9.99. But then I saw something new (to me, anyway) a combo-hammer multitool for $14.95. There was a hatchet version next to it that I would have preferred, for the same price, but it was just too big to carry in the backpack. 

I snagged the hammer version and got in line to buy them. The multitool was much more than I'd planned to spend, but every now and then I'm willing to dish out more for this kind of unique and very useful item. The total for everything was $37.46. I thought I could cover it, but did not have enough on my card. I asked the kind and patient cashier if I might be able to put it all aside, transfer the money and come back to pay for it. She said "No problem!"

Beginning to sweat a bit from embarrassment and the time crunch of getting back to town while it was still relatively early, I crossed the parking lot to a Steak and Shake restaurant and asked if I could buy a Coke and use their Wi-fi. The woman there was very sweet, and told me I need not buy anything, and could work at a table if I wanted. I bought the Coke anyway ($0.89), did my transfer and headed out. She offered to give me an extra Coke for the road, which was above and beyond. I tipped her a dollar. I was beginning to understand about the bartering and service-oriented way that the street life worked. This would become even more pronounced in the days to come.

Now sweating into my hat prodigiously, I returned to Wal-Mart and found the cashier, who was done with her shift and leaving--just in time. She went to a closed register and signed in to personally sell me the items. I thanked her, and asked where the bus stop for number 10 was. She let me know it was right behind the Steak and Shake. Ha! I strolled back and caught the bus downtown, where I went to the library and worked on my post, not being able to publish it in time before the library closed. I did, however, get a couple more shots of this grand building... 

The front entrance--which I'd never gone in. Beautiful!

My house. America. She might be conflicted,

but she's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.

My tool. Ha! Soon to be put to good use.

I was on my way back to the camping spot, and looking forward to relaxing among the catalpa trees and tiny spiders. Life was good. It didn't need to be filled with opulence and comfort to be truly good. The Universe was shining on me, even if that light was invisible to all other people; even if my posts weren't being read; even if my pictures got two likes on Facebook; even if no one listened to me. I was doing what I was put on this earth to do. And, I thought for a moment, just a moment, that I was actually doing it well. No one had to tell me. I needed no social validation to know. The Spark smiled. And, I smiled back.

The tent went up easily, and I slipped into it, and into the cushion of my expanding mind; the insulated place where there were no boundaries, no suppositions, no uncertainties. It is there that I have been refortified every day since starting this Journey.