05/22/2026
The Fly or the Spider
The lessons and wonder of Nature are completely unlimited.
I want to tell you a thought-provoking story.
For background, when I was a very young child, I have always been sensitive, thoughtful, dreamy, weird or different.. very quirky and complex. but, Nature always grounded me and made me feel at home. I never felt misunderstood in the presence of the grass, trees, flowers, rivers, dragonflies, little critters, frogs and toads.. you get it.
I was the young girl that would hold her hands up to experience a warm breeze randomly during play. Always chatted with trees and spoke to the sun. I greeted every little toad, bumblebee and snake I came across with love and joy by simply being in their presence.
I loved to wear dresses with pants underneath so I could feel elegant BUT keep my legs warm if needed. Being barefoot was nonnegotiable in all environments.
Anyways, one day I was at my grandparents. I was maybe 6? Maybe younger but definitely not older. I was very good at keeping myself busy and I was looking for chalk in their garage.
In the corner of my eye, I caught a spider in its web. With the spider, I saw a fly struggling.
I observed for quite sometime. I froze. I had strong empathy for the poor, sweet fly desperately trying to get away.. I also had understanding for the spider. That was their meal. That is what spider webs do.
What does a little girl do? Squish the spider? Save the fly and starve the spider? Leave the fly to its death trying to wiggle free?
Do I do.. anything? Do I continue as a bystander?
Even as a child, I made a terrible bystander.
It was a very complex dilemma in my child-like brain.
…. In that moment, I decided I couldn’t do nothing at all. I swatted it all. I swatted the web, the fly, and the spider and ran away. I didn’t want to know who lived.. but at least I did… something? My very sensitive self did cry about it. In private. In secrecy. I knew I would be laughed at by the adults in my life if I told them how I was crying about a fly and spider.
Now, as an adult, I would have trusted Nature to handle it. I wouldn’t have intervened. Not because I wanted to be a bystander, but I trust the cycle of life and death. I also trust the strength and odds in all living things. Sometimes, not everything needs an intervention but respect in what it is. To be allowed to move through life as the odds come..
Anyways, I sometimes still think about that moment in my life.
What would you do?
The end.
