Leaves, spiders, eye of the tigers

My high-low-buffalo redux

The only thing worse than a spider that you can see is a spider that you can no longer see. 

Take Monday for example: I’m minding my own business reheating a pasta dish my husband meal-prepped for the week when I notice a smudge on the ceiling. A small and slowly moving smudge. 

Feeling brave, I climb on the bench seat at our dining table to get a closer look. Definitely not just a smudge. I ball up a paper towel and return to my perch below the intruder. With eyes squinted half-closed, I jab at the mass and make contact. Success!

I pull back the paper towel ball, heart racing with pride and relief, only to find the paper towel disturbingly undisturbed. 

You know what’s not a fun guessing game? Did the spider fall in my lunch? Or more specifically, is it pepper or spider? 

You might have heard of the tv show, “Is it cake?” where contestants make shockingly realistic looking desserts that resemble armchairs, baseball bats, anything but actual cake. 

In my new-to-us 70-year-old house, which boasts original hardwood floors with knots that resemble bulbous bodies and dirt smudged crown molding, it’s often quite tricky to tell if something is a sign of wear and tear or a spider. I check and re-check smudges, focus on cracks and corners, body tense, always ready. 

****

My fear of spiders dates back to my earliest interactions with “the things that shall not be named.” 

A few 8-legged encounters of note include: 

The time my mom handed me a pile of mail with an accidental spider and I catapulted from the passenger seat of our gold Mercury Sable straight back into the middle section without a thought or breath. I would have jumped into the way back with the two rear-facing seats perfect for annoying every driver on the road if the limits of my adrenaline would have allowed. 

Or the time at my cardiologist’s office when I picked up a National Geographic and flung the magazine across the waiting room because of a photograph of a spider. Damn the detail of those photographers, even in 1996. So much for an accurate stress test reading, the whole reason we were there. 

Or the time I watched the movie Arachnophobia with the high school youth group. I understand the desire to be edgy and bring the non-churched in, but really? I slept with the lights on and checked every corner, sheet, and part of the toilet for months (if you know, you know). 

These may seem like comical stories of a little girl with a slightly exaggerated and perhaps irrational fear of spiders. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing exaggerated about my next tale. The week of prom my senior year, I developed a strange ache in my inner thigh. As a former gymnast and current dancer, I was used to strained muscles and assumed I must have tweaked it during practice. The pain lingered until a small bump began to grow and harden. Grow and harden. Grow and harden. Until the crater-like sore branched out with a pale pink line inching toward my heart. 

The doctor was shocked by the size of my spider bite. He called in his colleagues. They couldn’t know for sure, but threw out terms like brown recluse and blood poisoning and special case! 

Blood poisoning!

The worst part was that I could not answer their questions about when and where the bite had occurred. I had been violated in the most egregious manner. 

Fears confirmed. Burn down the house. My leg. My prom date. 

I hobbled to the dance on antibiotics. 

***

The only thing better than leaves fluttering in the wind is the moment when a dazzle of sunshine transfigures those dull leaves into glowing lime green silhouettes. 

In my new house, my desk faces a window to our front yard. We moved in summer, so for now, my view includes green grass, green Bradford pear leaves, and a giant maple tree with jagged green leaves bigger than a man’s outstretched palm. 

Squirrels chatter as I write. Dappled sunlight spills onto my desk in a display of sun and shadow, a dance of darkness and light. 

I drop my shoulders, exhale, and keep writing. 

***

My love of leaves dates back to a specific tree near our house growing up that I affectionately named The Remembering Tree. The gnarled branches jutted out over the street making it perfectly positioned to be visible to a five-year-old daydreaming out the window from her backseat booster. About three houses down from our own, I dubbed it The Remembering Tree because its presence helped me remember we were almost home. 

I grew up peeling back the slippery bark of manzanita trees, crushing acorns for make believe soup, and braiding pine needles into friendship bracelets. 

The house we moved to in middle school was situated down a private tree-lined road that haunted like the Beauty and the Beast forest in the winter. Yet spring brought vibrant green new growth, and driving out through the canopy of fluttering leaves felt like our very own May Day parade. 

My favorite fall tree sat just outside our church. Each Sunday we would ooh and ahh at the shift from green to yellow to orange to red to empty. When I went away to college, my dad sent me weekly emails with pictures of the tree’s progress. My parents mailed me fall leaves that I taped to my dorm room walls beside posters of Christian pop bands (Plus One, if you must know) and newspaper clippings of Paul Hamm clinching the men’s gymnastics Olympic all-around title. 

After college, I worked at a non-profit known most for planting trees in countries afflicted with rural poverty. I gifted every friend and relative trees planted in their honor for Christmas and made accompanying pop-up tree cards. 

Even now, when I catch sight of the sun in the trees or the half-inch of lime green new growth on plants, I stop and squeal the way some people fawn at puppies or babies. Though I probably just yelled at my kids to hurry, though I risk being late, I will always pause to document the secret dazzle of sun and leaves.

At our last home, my son affectionately named our favorite hiking trail Trailridge, our street name, instead of Mission Trails, the real name. I can’t help but see his linguistic mix up as an echo of my own Remembering Tree. The name of our home and the name of our trail became one and the same. The trees a reminder that we were almost home. 

***

One glance at the treehouse, and I was sold. 

I’d been browsing homes on Redfin for months and the results in our price range were underwhelming. 

But this house! This yard! This magical tree!

I started fantasizing about our future, tree-saturated existence. If I was going to give up year-round beach weather and my friends and family, then gosh darnit, there better be trees! 

I thought about that house in the shower. I sent screenshots to friends. I plotted the walking distance to the local school, to my husband’s workspace, to the library and nearest hiking trails. 

I had agonized about the decision to move, but felt no hesitations about this home.

And now we’re here. 

The house is real. The life is real. The walks to school and work and the lake and library are real. The leaves and sunlight and sense of home is real. 

The spiders are real, too. 

Like that spider who may or may not have infiltrated my lunch. You know what, I ate it anyway. 

When you’ve packed up your whole life and said goodbye to grandparents and familiarity and a community you spent years cultivating, what’s a little spider in your spaghetti?

I understand that this would be a much different story if he were bigger than a smudge, and in light of journalistic integrity I feel compelled to report that after I took a bite, I did indeed see him crawling across the floor, confirming he had not landed in my lunch. But I did not know that when I took a bite. And of course, there is always the second spider conspiracy to consider. 

I can’t help but smirk at the giant metaphor staring me down: good and bad co-mingle, with leaves, comes spiders. 

Isn’t that life? Heaps of good and bad and opportunities to be brave. 

With the move, one of my metaphorical spiders has been the challenge of staying in touch. Staying caught up on texts and even knowing how to articulate an answer to “how are you doing?” has been overwhelming. 

I can’t summarize the whole move, but I can share some leaves and spiders and moments of bravery. 

My college friends and I used to share our “highs and lows” at our weekly Bible study meetings. Over the years, we rebranded the exercise to “perks and puddles” and later “roses and thorns.” Since having kids, I’ve learned about a different variation: “high-low-buffalo,” where the buffalo can be something funny to keep a kid’s interest (think jokes with no punchline but proper inflection and farting sounds). 

I’d love to start a consistent check in here. A chance to share our highs and lows. And because I have to put my own spin on it, introducing: leaves, spiders, eye of the tigers.

🌿 leaves–the good, what you’re celebrating, proud of, grateful for, etc. 

🕷️ spiders-the ick, the uncomfortable, the “Ugh why?,” the heartbreaking

🐅 eye of the tigers-moments of bravery

About twice a month, I’d love to hear what’s going well, what’s hard, and how you’ve pushed through fear or resistance anyway. 

***

I’ll start with a recap of the move so far: 

🌿 – our dreamy house, a church we love, a job helping kids experience religion as love first (I’m the new 1st/2nd grade Sunday school teacher at our church), being walking distance from school, downtown, and the lake, weekly dinners with our friends, a new bike and miles of lakeview biking trails two blocks from our house, the kids enjoying school and overall transitioning to life in Idaho so smoothly, my husband getting to co-work with a friend, TIME and MARGIN to write and walk in silence and read and recover from the frenzied demands of the last year

🕷️ spiders–well, actual spiders–I probably kill at least one a day or have my husband do it if it’s a little too bodied for me, my health has been frustrating, surgery recovery is painstakingly slow and sporadic and I’m dealing with some other chronic issues that affect my energy levels, on hard days, it’s infuriating to think I gave up so much for this time and margin only to feel crummy and not want to get out of bed, missing my people and still feeling generally untethered from my own life

🐅 eye of the tigers-I’m proud to report that I am killing most of the spiders in and out of the house, I presented at the International OCD Foundation conference in July and I continue to host a monthly support group for creatives with OCD, I willingly signed up to teach 1st and 2nd graders about God–pray for me

When I introduced leaves, spiders, eye of the tigers to my kids, my daughter answered, “Mama, one of my leaves is you,” and I extend that sentiment to you, readers. I love being able to write and share with you. 

So fire away! Please share any recent leaves, spiders, and eye of the tigers. And, I’m curious, if you were to make your own variation, what would be your symbols of good, bad, and bravery? 🌿 🕷️ 🐅