"Once a little jumping spider, on a porch railing, came to my hand, and stood up on its back legs and stared, with exquisite green eyes, into my face. You can say that is wasn't so; it was so. This was on a warm summer day. A few sailboats were gliding around the harbor that stretches out and becomes ocean, and who knows where the world ends. Good luck, little spider of the keyhole. Live as long as you can." Mary Oliver

Now that the weather has turned officially cold and winter is settling in, so are the box elders and the lady bugs.They have been settling into our home for weeks now. The spiders also have been visible trying to find places to rest, spots to spin their lace, out of the danger of winter wind.

It is a curious relationship to forge, living with insects. On the one hand I do not want to find myself or any of my family visibly bitten by a spider. I usually react to their bites and on at least one occasion had to take medication to soothe the itching and the spreading welts. On the other hand, I respect their right to walk this Earth with me, their legs more numerous and thinner than my own. I know they are only trying to do the work to which they were called, the same as I. And so it can be said for the other bugs I have mentioned. Truth be told, there is something hopeful in seeing the sweet orange body of a ladybug when ice is frozen outside your window.

Over the last weeks when I have seen these fellow travelers, I have simply placed a piece of paper in their path. They seem obliged to continue crawling and make their way onto the out stretched paper. I then open the door and send them outside. In doing so I do not know their fate. They most likely die as they would have if I had squashed them like others might. Or maybe…and this is my hope…they find a warmer place among leaves or in a bed of stones, where their life is extended.

I would pray that, if our size differential were reversed, they would do the same for me.