dictation's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \"...gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell\" Somewhere along the line, and I can kind of pinpoint it, I made a decision to not kill the spiders that live in my apartment. Big, small, and inbetween, spiders found inside these walls get scooped into plastic containers and taken outside. If it's the dead of winter, I'll let them out in the hall or the lobby of the building. I've read enough to know they're magnificently complex little creatures, but then every studied creature is. I'm not sure why I'm inclined to 'rescue' them. And it's not a rescue anyway. When I fail I feel guilty and wonder if I'm bent for feeling it about something as small and 'insignifigant' as a spider. We the big and mighty step on stuff all the time. Most of the stuff we step on is as abundant as grass. We're allowed and forgiven. Still, I'm glad I feel that twinge. It seems to be getting more prominent the older I get. It's become the pinch that tells me I'm alive beyond breathing. That said, other bugs don't fare so well. Like some random subGod in the planet of insects, I allow some life and send others off to meet their maker. Mosquitoes could plead with me in English and I'd still be indifferent. Silverfish? Your squiggly passive forms bring out the creep in me. The crunchy liquid exo-skeletons of June Bugs intimidate me. If one happens to stumble in on awkward wings I'll spend an hour coaxing it out with the end of the broom. An insect has to be an easy kill or it won't be killed at all? Fightening. Poison is the coward's way. I haven't bought or used Raid(TM) for years. If I'm going to kill something with wings and a stinging poison sac I'll face it head on. Moving up the food chain, I haven't the constitution to kill a sentient animal - like say a cow or a pig or even a chicken. In dire straits - i.e. the absence of a food supply - I might find myself able to. Otherwise, the act would weigh too heavily on my conscience. But then for awhile I stopped being a vegetarian, and although I consumed free-range and 'organic' meat, I couldn't shake the hypocrisy. I'd abandoned my principles. Proof was in all the constant rationalizing... And then I stopped all that and got back on the track of my conscience. So last night I was in the tub when I noticed a delicate spider on the edge of my new and pristine shower curtain, spinning and dropping, spinning and dropping. Resigned, I climbed out of the tub and, dripping wet, rummaged in a kitchen cupboard for a suitable container. It was an easy capture. I held the container just below the suspended 'sect and he spun himself right into it. Most captures aren't easy as spiders 'know' and spiders avoid. With spiders I am as gentle as I would be with a bird. I tell them I'm not going to hurt them. It sounds silly and foolish - the kind of foolish kids would poke a stick at in grade school - and yet I can't help it. I suppose we know we've reached adulthood when we don't give as much of a damn about that common stick anymore. Still, I sense there's this huge invisible lens all around that watches for signs of mercy, requires me to be foolish if that's what it takes. Still, I'm random and for all the merciful acts there are many of the other kind. I'm counting on that lens to understand me. And to help me to become more lens-like. 12:40 p.m. - 2004-03-29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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