The boys are out walking

I saw my first tarantula of the season yesterday. He was crossing the path behind the athletics fields with the kind of calm, deliberate confidence usually reserved for people who have never once wondered whether they left the oven on. I stopped. He kept walking. A girl about twenty feet behind me screamed. So, overall, I think he handled the encounter better. This is apparently the time of year when the males leave their burrows and wander around looking for females. I love this fact because it makes the whole terrifying-tarantula thing sound much less dramatic. He is not hunting you. He is not stalking the campus. He has somewhere to be, and you are the enormous noisy obstacle standing between him and what is presumably a very complicated romantic evening. September does this every year. The weather starts changing, the light gets softer, everyone begins pretending pumpkin spice is a personality trait, and somewhere in the grass a spider the size of your palm decides it is time to go meet someone. Nature has excellent timing. People do not. Within thirty seconds there were five of us standing around this poor animal. Two people had their phones out. One person kept saying, “Is that actually a tarantula?” despite the fact that the answer was becoming increasingly difficult to dispute. Someone suggested moving him off the path with a stick. Please don’t do that. Imagine leaving your house after spending most of the year alone underground, finally working up the nerve to go find a date, and immediately being relocated by a sophomore with a lacrosse stick. He knows where he is going better than you do. Probably better than I do, honestly. I stayed a few feet away and watched him disappear into the dry grass. The whole thing took maybe two minutes. No attack. No dramatic rearing. No emergency. He crossed a path. That was it. I think we have a strange relationship with wild things here. We like nature very much when it stays inside the categories we have made for it. Redwoods are beautiful. Wildflowers are beautiful. Deer are beautiful, unless they eat the roses. Bees are important, unless they come near the picnic table. Spiders are useful, as long as they remain theoretical. Then something with eight hairy legs walks across the trail and suddenly everyone wants Facilities involved. I am not pretending I would enjoy waking up with a tarantula on my pillow. There are limits to spiritual openness. But seeing one outside, exactly where it belongs, feels different. It is a reminder that all the landscaping and sidewalks and carefully planted flower beds are sitting on top of a place that existed before we organized it. Most of the time the older version keeps itself hidden. Underground. In the trees. Under rocks. Moving around after dark while we are inside watching television and convincing ourselves the campus belongs to us. Then September arrives and one of the locals goes for a walk. So if you see a tarantula over the next few weeks, give him some room. He is busy. And unlike most men wandering around campus looking for a date, he has absolutely no interest in explaining his podcast to you.