What comes next?

Jill Gerard

Outside

the leaves have turned coastal North Carolina colors—muted red of the dogwood, slightly golden river birch, rusty orange bald cypress. On my commute to work, I pass over the Northeast Branch of the Cape Fear River. At this time of year, the water is still. Sometimes it reflects the trees in the darkly brown-green water, sometimes mist and fog rise from its glassy surface. The water itself flat calm.

Just this morning, a great white heron arrives to fish in the marsh. The bird is a patient hunter, standing unmoving in the chilly water. Its neck extends from its rounded body, a graceful line, then its small oval head, and long golden bill, sharp as the tip of a spear. With two small steps, it readies itself for the strike. The neck becoming sineuous, strike accurate. One, two, three fish in a row before it disappeared into the grasses at the bend in the shallows.

The fall offers us moments of stillness. I find myself wondering about what comes next, what new opportunity is out there beyond my control, waiting. In this season of stillness, what is readying itself? Sometimes, the wondering is exhilarating. Sometimes, it causes angst. Sometimes, it is a quiet hopeful expectation.

Each morning when I head out the door and into the world, my path will intersect others—there are people, of course. But so much more waits for me—the sun rising over the river, a rabbit emerging from tall weeds in the garden, the writer spider in her web.

as late summer turned to fall, a host of writer spiders spun their webs between the pecan tree and the lamp post in the front yard, the lady banks rose arbor and the house, the magnolia and the longabandoned climber. The spiders have a sense of industry. They clean and tidy their webs each day. The concentric circles can stretch out for several feet, the thick and visible zig-zag providing stability.

The spiders have an odd life—or so it seems to me. They shake those webs. The smaller male plucks the strands of the female’s web.

Imagine him, a troubadour wooing his mate. But his life is short— the mating for him results in s seizure and a slow death. The females shake the webs too, sometimes to dislodge predators but more often to firmly catch prey in the sticky capture threads.

The female grows larger and larger over the fall months, molting her skin, until she is as big and fat as my thumb.

I pause and watch the spiders. Sometimes I speak to them, reach out to touch one of the tough and stretchy lines of silk. One evening when I arrived home, Philip told me that two larger female spiders had pulled apart one of the smaller males who lived in the space between the two centers. It must have started with that wooing. But ultimately, it was not a good day for the spider. The two black and yellow females were getting noticeably bigger—and the mate was gone.

i like to watch the small creatures in the world. Years ago, I sat on a friend’s porch with her son, Avery, watching a praying mantis that had appeared on the half-wall between the porch and the garden. We both commented on its beauty—the brightness of the green, the perfectly folded elliptical wings, the oddly robotic triangular head, and those small front legs folded up so neatly. It sat so quietly, so stilly on the brick porch wall.

Further down the wall, near a wooden post, six or eight large black ants were busy carrying small white spheres, likely eggs or larvae being relocated. The moved with purpose, across the top of the wall, then down the side, disappearing into a crack at the base.

Watching insects requires its own quiet patience. Avery was a curious child. He and I sat close together on a bench facing that wall, whispering about the movement of the ants, the quiet stillness of the mantis. One black ant broke off from the group and headed down the wall. Soon enough it was in the vicinity of the mantis. The mantis did not move at all until the ant was close enough, then the front legs flashed and the ant was in its grasp.

Green mantis, black ant. The startling contrast of color on the red, ruddy brick. The mantis did not rush its meal, slowly eating one part at a time until all that was left was the head. Then that was gone too.

Chautauqua

not all my observations end with such finality. Once while walking at the park, I paused to watch a group of young boys kick the soccer ball around. They were quick and precise on their feet. The white ball dribbled deftly down the field, passed to a team mate for a shot on goal. The ball went high over the goal and landed close to me. I nudged it back to the field and then kicked it to them. The boy, his blue and yellow jersey bright among all the shades of green in the park, smiled and raised his hand before turning back to his game.

Their laughter carried through the park, and I smiled to hear them cheer as I continued walking. Such a small thing—a morning walk, a morning practice, a stray ball connecting me to their group even if just momentarily.

The other day I drove through a Wendy’s, grabbing a late lunch before my commute home. At the window, I asked the worker how much the order was in the car behind me. She told me and I handed back my card. “Can you put it on my card?” one of my favorite poems is james wright’s “the blessing.” I appreciate all the layers of the poem and its making—the story of how Wright arrived in Minnesota, how he broke free into a new way of writing, how a life-changing friendship developed, how a moment in the world—a moment when you observe in such fine detail the beauty of living creatures, the world in which they live—can change you, can allow you to “break into blossom.”

Soon, I had my food and the bank card was tucked back in my wallet. I pulled forward and waited to merge back into traffic. From behind, I heard the toot of a car horn. In my rearview mirror, I saw someone waving from the car behind. Then they gave a thumbs up. I waved in return—happy that they had a moment of unexpected happiness, albeit a small one.

Those smiles and waving hands stay with me—reminders that what we do in a day might not change the trajectory of the world, but it just might improve it. Imagine the energy building from all those small moments in a day, in a week, in a month.

We have a small cottage just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. One spring morning Philip called to me from the yard. A deer had emerged from the woods, pawing at the ground, trumpeting. She did not come close to us, but warned us not to come any closer to the woods either. all these moments have something to offer—the awful and awesome beauty of the spider, the devastating spectacle of the mantis, the carefree delight of boys playing soccer, the spirit-filling arrival of ponies in a pasture, the fierce determination of the doe protecting her fawn.

We watched her—dusty brown of her coat, dark almond eyes, a bit of white around her muzzle. Then she turned and with two bounds disappeared into the brush white tail flashing. From the ground, just behind her a fawn rose, the white speckles across its back looking so much like bits of sunlight falling through the branches. The fawn followed the doe. The quickly disappeared into the woods and it was almost as if they had only been figments of our imagination.

Then we stepped forward. The fawn had been snuggled down into a bed of leaves, oval shaped, tamped down in the middle, but rough on the edges to make it hard to spot. In that moment, I felt perhaps as Wright did, as if something light and life-changing was breaking forth.

Our days spin by sometimes faster than we wish, the world turning, dawn to dusk to deep of night and again and again. Some days perhaps you also wake wondering what lies ahead, to welcome what will be or to shed off the weight of the current moment. William Stafford’s poem, “You Reading This Be Ready,” opens by asking us what we want to remember. It closes with these words: “What can anyone give you greater than now,/starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?”

We need to be ready—to greet the spider, watch the light rise over a tree line and illuminate a river, kick back the soccer ball, smile at a stranger, tell the one you love that you love.