Argiope aurantia is the technical name for them. They are large spiders that live in gardens. I personally don’t like spiders. I’m not alone. On the list of human phobias Wikipedia lists arachnophobia (fear of spiders) is prevalent in nearly 90% of all females and 18% of all males, of which I am one, which is what makes this story even more unlikely.
I have an herb garden in my backyard. I have never been an avid gardener, but I like fresh herbs. To my dismay one day I found a huge web stretched between the only rosemary bush I had planted and a dill plant that I had let grow to long.
In the center of the web was a huge black spider with yellow spots on its back. I remember it being slightly smaller than half the size of my hand, but in retrospect it was probably smaller, but still large enough to be intimidating.
My first thought was to get a stick and destroy the web, but when I finally found something I could use, I found myself curiously interested in the spider, not an uncommon phenomenon, to be drawn to something that you fear.
When I got closer to look at it, it scurried for cover. I dropped the stick, I had already decided not to destroy the web or kill the spider, but of course, the spider didn’t know that.
My first thought was, if I was actually going to try to cohabitate with this creature, I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t poisonous. I looked it up on the Internet and found out that the spider wasn’t dangerous like a Brown Recluse or a Black Widow, and that it was actually beneficial for my garden, killing the bugs that would ultimately hurt my plants. I also discovered that it was female. Probably the strangest of all was that spiders only have two basic emotions, fear and anger. They don’t become tame regardless of what people who have pet Tarantulas may think. At best they are only lethargic.
At any rate that is where my relationship (so to speak) with an Argiope Aurantia began. Because she was in my rosemary bush, I called her Rosie. In the days that followed when I worked in the garden I would occasionally talk to her, and as time progressed my tongue-in-cheek, one-sided conversations became more frequent.
As weeks passed, I found myself actually bonding with the spider, not in the way that dogs or cats bond with humans, spiders do not have that capacity, but Rosie seemed to become less timid of me. She got to a point where I could get very close to her and she would not run away.
As I lost my fear of her, I began to see the beauty in her, her glistening black body, brilliant yellow spots. I found her stunning. For a brief period I even toyed with the idea of trying to touch her and I came close a couple of times, but in the end I realized that she was a creature of the wild and some things are not meant for human interaction.
Then one day I noticed that she seemed to be growing larger. At first I thought Rosie was thriving in her new home, but then I realized the truth. Rosie was pregnant and about to lay her eggs.
Over the next few days I made it a point to go out every day and look in on her, not that I know anything about pregnant spiders, but I was becoming protective of her. Then one day I went out to see her… and she was gone. The web looked conspicuously empty and so did my herb garden. After another day had passed the sad realization started to dawn on me that I would probably never see Rosie again. The truth was I missed her. For several days more I looked for her, but she never reappeared. That weekend as I weeded the herb box I found her body, no longer thick and beautiful, she lay curled up, shriveled and still. Rosie was dead.
For a moment I sat back on my knees looking at her, eyes misty, a grown man feeling strangely sad for the loss of all things, a “spider”, an odd feeling, but one I still remember. Yet as I looked at her I felt my spirits lift. I realized that Rosie had become what nature had intended her to become and that she achieved what she was meant to do. How many of us can claim such a legacy?
That day, I buried her remains at the base of the rosemary bush where her web had been and silently thanked her. Rosie was gone, but the memory of Rosie, and what she had taught me, continues on. And as I sat there I suddenly had to smile, in her place Rosie had left me a virtual swarm of “little” Rosies crawling up and down the dill and rosemary plants.
Since those days there have been a number of Rosies in my herb patch, and I have always made room for them, and though none has ever been as beautiful as Rosie, each became unique and different in its own way, and each became what nature had intended. Rosie, a spider, had opened my eyes to possibilities that I had never considered before.
I still don’t care for spiders, but I appreciate them, I understand them, and the fear I once had of them has changed to something else…perhaps wonder. Rosie in her own way had changed the way I look at all life and in her own way, made an unlikely friend along the way.