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.

Photo by J.T. Ellison. Chicago, June 2024.

This seems a challenging spot to live. The web is buffeted by the wind, shaking so hard sometimes I fear it will tear away. It must be hot; the reflection of the glass in the first summer heat wave would probably burn your hand. But the view is magnificent. She turns around, facing in and facing out, regularly.

This is a small life. She keeps a clean house. Her web is intricate and well-anchored—it must be, to withstand the wind that whistles by at this great height. When two other little spiders tried to cling to the edges, she is having nothing of it, and shakes those lines hard enough to fling one off and cause the other to scamper away. Then she attends to those frayed edges and makes her way back to the middle, where she stretches her legs in satisfaction.

This moves me on a very deep level. I am here, in Chicago, on a two-day writing retreat. My husband has a conference, hence a free hotel room for me. Uninterrupted time to stare at the water and waves and clouds and pull words out of my brain and onto the page. I find the deeper I am into a book, the more I need a different perspective to help me pull the story together. Whether it’s the beach or the mountains, a cityscape or a windswept lake, or a thick forest with a fire in the grate, I can focus so much better and move the story forward.

I know how lucky I am to be able to break free of my day-to-day writing life to have these moments. Over the years, I’ve found they are vital to the process of writing a book, so I look for them when I’m in the last two months of writing, knowing I need the boost. Absenting yourself from your life, your responsibilities, almost always helps your creativity. Why?

I think it’s probably two-fold: you don’t want to waste the quiet time, nor the money and time spent to disappear, and a different view activates neurons in your brain, giving a short-term dopamine boost every time you look up. It’s much healthier than the endless scroll, though I admit that does help me think sometimes.

Finding a good meal at the end of a ten-second elevator ride is a nice perk, too.

It turns out Lariniodes sclopetarius, the bridge spider, also known as the gray-cross spider, is quite common on the buildings throughout this city. Chicagoans are encouraged to keep their windows shut lest these creatures join them inside. They dine on all sorts of high-flying bugs, and fellow spiders, if that’s all available on the menu. A needs-based life. A wild life. One of hardship, yes, but sublime beauty as well. Something that a creative understands completely. I need a safe home. I need food. I need proper rest. Those three things, universal to us all, are the building blocks of creativity. Those three variables help my mind function on story.

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I make a fresh pot of tea. The words are coming. Gray—it feels silly to call her Charlotte, knowing what she is—seems to be asleep. Her legs are curled, her body tight. Is that possible? Do spiders sleep? How, on the exterior of a building in the sky, with predatory birds and winds and fascinated room occupants, do you get the rest you need?

To the Googles.

Did you know spiders can’t close their eyes? They don’t have eyelids. So, instead of getting some good old shut-eye, they lower their metabolism so they can rest. If something comes along, a delectable snack entangled in the sticky strands, she can react quickly, have her treat, then power down again.

We can learn from that, about the value of expending energy only when needed, and reserving power for when it’s truly necessary. You stretch when you feel tight. You eat when you’re hungry. You allow new experiences to fill your creative well. You write, watching from the corner of your eye to see what she does next.

You write, inspired by the tenacity of a spider clinging to the side of a building.

You write, because it is what you are, who you are. It is your role, as hers is to spin a web and eat what blunders in.

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This morning, I whisk open the curtains and startle her. She flips over and pulls together into a tight ball. I feel terrible. She must have thought a bird was coming in to snatch her away. Does she know the fragility of her existence? How, at any moment, it could be taken away? The metaphor is not lost on me.

Nor is this strange fact: I have become attached to this creature. To the very thing that scares me. That makes my skin crawl and shudder when I look too closely or too long. But I can’t help it; I am fascinated as well.

To the far right of my temporary view is an apartment building. It is all glass, floor to ceiling—better for the occupants to see the views of the city and lake. There are beds, desks, and couches, pushed against the glass. An elaborate cat tree. An 8-millimeter movie reel has fallen behind a cushion. A vibrant ficus; two pink hula hoops. A black cat with white paws lolls in the sun, tail languorously slapping the glass. The idea of living in the sky with my head to the window makes me deeply uncomfortable. I crave the solidity of a wall between me and the rest of the world.

On each window, and only when the shades are drawn, I can just barely see black dots. I can only assume these are Gray’s brethren, climbing the sides of their own building, setting up homes where they can watch. These spiders are as much voyeurs as I am. Imagine what they see, peering into homes and hotel rooms. All the dark things. The joy. The fights. The lovemaking. The cooking. The way we stare at screens and don’t look up.

How confusing must that be to a beast who, by their very nature, must always be looking up? Who does not have eyes to close? Who cannot look away? They are as insular as the mind of a crime fiction writer, always peering in the windows and minds of others for a story to share.

Looking out. Or looking in. Where are the better stories found?

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Gray is gone.

Just before I left for lunch, something got in the web. She ate it, then started rebuilding frantically. And when I returned…the window was empty. The web is in tatters, and the spider is gone. Will she be back later? Or have the vagaries of the harsh world she lives in caught up to her? Was it wind, or bird, or another fanged creature, larger and faster? I can’t imagine the lifespan of a skyscraper spider is a long one. Her sojourn here with me was less than forty-eight hours.

Why do I feel a loss? Because even as I shuddered, we had the opportunity for a real connection. For me to understand more of her.

I will write someone, or something, into this book and name them Gray in her honor, an easter egg for those of you who know. That way, the spider who invaded the imagination of a writer on retreat will never be truly gone.

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