i've been noticing that some things demand attention. like it or not, these bits keep bumping into me until i take notice. and when i do pay attention, when i do give credence to the fact that four different people asked me the exact same thing, when i notice that i've made photos of the same subject in a handful of disparate environments, when i don't just brush my knees off when i stumble again and again in the exact same spot - when i really open my eyes - i am gobsmacked by what i see.
sometimes it's big. a revelation that brings new light to most of my adult experience, leaving me with a feeling of profound relief, of great sadness, of newfound compassion. sometimes it's quite small. a lunchbox packing epiphany, bringing greater ease to the routine.
and sometimes the coincidence remains hidden before making a big splash with a proclamation that there is no such thing as a coincidence. i'm sitting with one of these tonight.
i've been watching a black swallowtail caterpillar rig a fine webbing of gossamer thread to the side of a mason jar. the caterpillar came in from the garden with the parsley a few days ago, and is now preparing to pupate, to shed its skin and transform into a chyrsalis. of course the metamorphosis is fascinating to me, especially as i'm rounding out a year of experiences and decisions that have forever altered me. but the captivating bit for me is that fine thread. this is what i notice. finally.
for weeks now, spider webs have woven themselves into my world. i have been mesmerized by the way webby threads catch the sunlight in the trees. have been stopped in my tracks by a web spanning the entire path. have dreamed about webs. have visited a house where a whole window was criss-crossed by woven spidersilk. have listened to rowan play a podcast about arachnids over and over. have come back again and again to a photo i made recently, so much so that i can trace the delicacies of the web therein by memory.
and so, i now see all this webbiness well enough to know that it is significant, even without knowing exactly why. tonight i know the web as home. the web as something that can provide for or ensnare us. the web as creation. the web as art. the web as sustenance. the web as how we orient ourselves in the world, how we connect with others.
there's still much to unpack here, and significance will likely continue to unfold for me with time, with greater reflection. but for now, i'm sitting with the notion that i get to choose exactly how i weave my life. this might seem obvious and trite, but on so many levels it's timely. and sometimes the most obvious is the most profound when it is finally noticed.
(and of course it's not lost on me that this little musing is captured here in my tiny corner of this web. another one of the many facets to be woven into the whole.)
