BY HARRY WEEKES
“Dad!”
My dogs teach me the meaning of their various barks. There is “deer bark,” a throaty, deep, projected bark directed toward the hills. There is “UPS-man bark,” a staccato series of sharp, piercing yips. There is the “Please-let-me-in-there-is-something-unknown-out-here bark,” an over-the-shoulder, intermittent, high-pitched plea.
My kids teach me the same conversational shorthand. The “Dad!” coming from an entrance to the bathroom fell into that “I have found a living thing where it definitely should not be or I do not want it to be” camp.
I did not have to wait long for the expansion.
“Dad, there’s a spider in the bathroom!”
My not-very-consoling response: “I know, isn’t he a beauty? Actually, I think he might be a she considering how big she is.”
You see, I knew the spider to which the concern referred as I saw the small beast scurry up the wall as I cleaned up for Georgia’s arrival.
I added, “Look at the red on her. And she’s so fuzzy, isn’t she?”
Pause.
“Umm, will you come and get her?”
“No way. You want her in there unless you want to be covered in other insects.”
OK, so there was some embellishment on that last point. My goal, though—to introduce a little comfort with a small part of nature that surely did more good than harm (unless you are a moth).
This all dovetailed with a conversation Simon and I had about his goal to reintroduce small talk and conversation to his cohort at college. He used the term “the familiar stranger,” referring to that person you frequently see in class or around campus but don’t yet know. Simon talked about the power and importance of introducing yourself to them to get a sense of who they are and what they are doing.
I love this idea.
More and more, it seems familiar strangers of the natural world surround us; we recognize them, but we don’t really know them. Increasingly, people spend more time indoors than out, more frequently squint at wild things rather than greet them wide-eyed, and the curiosity and wonder that crashed on us like waves as children have ebbed to mild suspicion and fear.
The spider in Georgia’s bathroom was a familiar stranger to me. Originally, I referred to her as a wolf spider—a kind of catchall name I give to all those squat, furry spiders whose eyes glisten like little black turrets on their head.
Taking Simon’s challenge to introduce myself to these strangers, I looked her up. And yep, she was a she—a female red-backed jumping spider. During our introduction, I learned she was a female by the elegant black racing stripe on her abdomen (which males do not have), that she is a mimic of velvet ants (who are actually wasps) and, as her name implies, that she is a jumping spider (not a wolf spider at all).
A furtive beast, she quickly hid, disappearing into any one of a hundred haunts in her small corner of our house. She will be back, though, leaping from sink to wall, then backing her way under the mirror. Or, perhaps, circumnavigating the orchid pot as I work to get a glimpse of her teal chelicerae (something I discovered she had only after she left, but which I long to see).
When she returns, there will be a major change, one as simple as it is profound, all based on Simon’s goal of reconnecting. She will now be familiar; a stranger no more.
Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 54th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and their two mini-Dachshunds. The baby members of their flock have now become adults; Georgia and Simon are fledging in North Carolina, and Penelope has recently changed roosting sites to Connecticut.