Spiders on the 39th Floor

Why Do We Have To Remove Ourselves From Our Lives to Get Anything Done?

I am on the thirty-ninth floor of a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan, and there is a spider in the window. She is outside, which was the very first thing I checked when I opened the curtains and saw her. I am…afraid of spiders. Always have been. I grew up with black widows, and when you regularly find venomous spiders in the bathtub/bed/closet/corners, it marks you. When I realized my two-day writing retreat was going to include a rather large daredevil clinging to a web thirty-nine stories up…I sighed. Not like I could do anything about it. And she was outside, so it’s not like she could hurt me, either. Detente, achieved.

I set up shop, dragging the comfy chair so it faced the lake. The side table is loaded with tea, water, notebooks and pens; my laptop is open and ready to go. But every few minutes, my eyes stray upward, to the occupant. My temporary roommate.