Tag Archives: spontaneous

The Spider

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Outside the bedroom window, it comes and goes. I glance up from the bed and find it absent. I’m relieved for the moment. The first time, I thought perhaps it had fallen and might not find its way back, or it had simply decided to move on. Then it came back, and I knew that I would have to put up with a fat, 2-inch spider in my window for a while.

It will be gone for days, sometimes, but then one day I’ll settle onto my bed and the obligatory spider-check will find that the menace has returned. From the window in the hall I can see it from the other side. I can see its web, attached to the outer wall of the building. This is, clearly, a prime spot for a spiderweb, and it seems rather doubtful that it will leave of its own accord. There is no indication that the spider wants to come inside – the second it does, I’m going on the offense-as-the-best-defense. So, for now, it’s no more than the potential for a problem. So, for now, I’ll just live with it.

With night falling, the spider’s silhouette becomes less and less visible, until I can’t see it at all anymore. I don’t know if it will be there in the morning, or if it will be gone, giving me a bit of space and peace.

Write About Anything: Sayings and Aphorisms

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~One good thing is a dangerous respite – welcome, but it can make you think you’re safe before it’s true. This respite helps, but if you think your problem is solved you’ll only end up in trouble again.~

 

“What goes up must come down.” This saying is based on the laws of gravity, which I won’t explain because we all know them. We know them instinctually and we know them intimately from all the times we fall. It’s hard to say whether this saying is comforting, a comment on faith in the predictability of the world, or pessimistic. You have a bit of luck, perhaps, but don’t worry, it won’t last. Then, of course, the other end of this is left unsaid. That is: What comes down will stay down unless forced back up. Doesn’t it take less effort to fall to the floor than it does to stand back up? Doesn’t it take less effort to spend your whole bank account than it did to make the money?

The only exception that I can think of, actually, is smiling. It takes fewer muscles and less energy to smile than it does to frown. Smiling widely for extended periods is tiring, but a normal, natural smile is easy. I challenge you – wear a comfortable smile for a few minutes, then frown for a few minutes. Let me know which one you prefer.

 

Here’s another one: It’s not over until the fat lady sings. Hmmm… maybe that’s why that choral ensemble didn’t accept me! Then it’d be over. (Just kidding…mostly.)

Write About Anything: “Insomnia”

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In the night I lie in bed. Stars, invisible through ceilings and city air, burn through me, through the body of the earth and out the other side, until their light and life-force collides with the light from other stars. I am awake, but dreaming. My mind leads me to places fantastic and mundane, images of what will happen tomorrow and things that will never happen, specters I will never meet. Fairies chuckling and monsters shimmering. I suspect that if I saw such things in real life, I would be unable to look directly at them for fear of them disappearing, or of them being too real. And when at last I drift off, the dreams I have in sleep are fuzzy and unformed. I wake feeling unrefreshed, as if my lucid half-nightmares beckon to me, enticing me back into their world.