It's hulking there by the mirror when I walk into the bathroom.
Both organic and industrial at the same time.
Dark hairy body, legs like tangled girders, twisted twigs, crab joints.
The shudder rips through me like the San Andreas fault.
I hesitate, but it's morning, and… I gotta pee. Like, now.
I tiptoe past the wildebeest clinging to the tile wall.
Flick a glance at the ventilation slats at the top of the bathroom wall, where it has certainly clambered in.
Eight sparkling eyes watch me make water. Eight legs, flexing and gyrating as I pee.
Let me back up and give you the context you need.
I’m pretty much a lifelong vegetarian.
I practice Non-Violent Communication.
I believe in resolving conflict in ways that support everyone involved.
I’ve never initiated a fist-fight.
I don’t use violence to solve my problems.
At the time this story takes place, I'm in India, in a rented room in a house in the jungle.
Mine is the only room with an attached indoor bathroom.
Technically, the house belongs to the jungle, pressing in on the outside of the windows.
Technically, I am in the spider's territory.
But.
This is my bathroom, and I just can't.
A frequent pee-er, I will never enter this bathroom at night with this guy just… hanging out.
In my youth, I spent a year living in the forest in a tent.
I made my peace with spiders, especially the large wolf spiders that would inhabit the space between my tent and rainfly, their outlines visible through the translucent tent fabric.
Inches from my face but separated by a wall of fabric.
I admired that they navigated by the stars.
I knew I was in their space.
However, I've lost some of my grit in the intervening years.
Part of going to India alone for six months is about earning it back.
But I get to have limits, right?
It is a house, after all.
A house. A HOUSE.
I make a decision.
I will gently remove this fellow. Eyeing the red shower bucket, I make a plan. I’ll capture him quickly and return him to the outside.
And get on with the day.
But in the process of this ‘simple’ maneuver, chaos ensues.
Huntsman spiders, which is what I later discovered he is, have evolved an incredible movement strategy.
Doing research I learn they can travel extremely quickly, often using a springing jump while running.
They walk on walls and even on ceilings.
They also tend to exhibit a "cling" reflex when picked up, making them difficult to shake off and increasing the likelihood of a bite.
So you can imagine the scene in my rustic bathroom.
The spider is running like it's trying to win an Olympic sprint.
I'm chasing it with the bucket until it turns and runs directly at me, hopping on my leg.
Screaming and flailing, I knock it off.
It flies up the wall and heads for my shampoo, like a vampire scaling a gothic castle wall.
At this point, I am freaking out.
My skin is crawling in repulsion and terror.
I grab the ubiquitous Indian toilet hand sprayer and aim it at my toiletry bottles.
The enormous spider (probably at least five inches) hurls itself out of the spray, retreating to the corner underneath the toilet, probably to plan its attack.
Clearly, it is not trying to escape.
We are in a battle, and I'm starting to realize it is to the death.
One of us will make it out alive.
At that moment, I am not sure it will be me.
No, fuck that.
It's going to be me.
Indian bathrooms typically feature a shower on the wall without a tub or curtain.
Water goes all over the floor.
After your shower, you scrape the tiles with a huge squeegie to push the water down the drain.
But in that moment, the innocuous bathroom cleaning technology becomes a weapon.
The spider has crept out from under the toilet, glowering at me from the corner.
I grab mine like a spear and aim at the monster.
The edge of the squeegie catches it in the gut, and it falls, collapsing in on itself.
It collapses in on itself, hinged legs curling into a ball.
I've killed it.
There is a moment of silence.
Guilt floods through me.
It is small, perversely crumpled, and now, deadly forlorn. I am huge, a giant.
I can't believe I've tossed away my non-violence toward such a small creature.
Sweat drips down my sides. I catch a glimpse of my red angry face in the mirror.
Part of me feels guilty, sure, but another part is relieved.
Tremendously relieved.
I’m powerful.
I've defeated the enemy.
Which is the precise moment it unfolds itself and tears ass straight at me.
The literal moment in the horror film the dead villian rises from the bloody tub, just when the hero thought they were safe.
I grab the abandoned squeegee.
Eventually, I prevail.
But in the process, I've reinjured an old shoulder injury.
The creature is a curled tangle on the floor.
Giving it another poke to make sure it’s really dead, I cannot bring myself to pick it up and flush it.
I am panting and crying. Disgust floods me, at the spider and at my violence.
That's what I'm writing about today: despite our best attempts at being peaceful, inside each of us is a part that can choose violence if the stakes become high enough.
Did I pause and reflect before going on the killing rampage?
No, I did not.
I don't go in my bathroom for the rest of the day.
But when I do, I am confronted by a mystery: the arachnid corpse has vanished.
That's when I figure it out: Huntsmen spiders have many defense strategies, and one is faking death.
That spider pretended to be dead, and then, once I left, it got up, shook itself off, and proceeded to go… somewhere.
Ugh.
The next morning, nature calls.
I just stick my head into the bathroom and take a look around.
No spider.
(By the way: This is how I will enter this bathroom for the next three weeks. My heebie-jeebies never go away.)
I proceed with caution.
I sit on the pot, ready to do my business.
But when I turn to get the handheld, who do you think is sitting DIRECTLY BEHIND ME on the tank of the toilet?
I call my landlord to plug the vents.
He stuffs Styrofoam in them and covers them with packing tape.
The next morning, a gecko casually races through the tape.
The spider and his friends continue to torment me.
One morning, I wake with three spider bites on my back.
We all know exactly who put them there.
I set a boundary out loud. "If I see you, I will kill you. You cannot live here."
Why didn't I just change rooms, you ask? Go stay somewhere else? Why keep feeding the violent part of me?
Not sure. I didn't want to give up, I guess.
I wanted to stick it out and re-up my grit quotient.
My injured shoulder comes with me back to the US, a reminder of the part that couldn’t bear to be with what I fear.
I spend a small fortune on Reiki, acupuncture, and massage.
Down bottles of anti-inflammatories.
It aches at night, reminding me of how I lost my shit over a spider.
It reminds me of how fear makes us lose compassion for others.
I am scared, therefore, you are terrifying.
I am afraid, therefore, you are trying to hurt me.
Even though I have all the institutional power, I still need to squash your life.
I hate to say this next part, but I can really relate to the humans who are terrified by those of us who threaten the gender binary, or any other conservative value.
I can understand the impulse to exterminate that which gives us the heebie-jeebies, that which scares us, that which disturbs our peace.
We never talk about the part of us that can (and often does) choose violence.
If we are loving, compassionate humans working on ourselves and our healing, it is challenging to be transparent about this part that wants to harm and destroy.
That's for 'them,' not us, right?
We would never do that.
Except that my spider knows otherwise.
That spider witnessed the part of me that just can't be with my fear and moved to destroy rather than settle my nervous system.
That spider knows I did not stop to consider the dignity and aliveness of others who I fear.
I wish I had a bow to wrap around this package, handing you a nice story about how I overcame my own inner violence.
How I was able to access compassion.
But.
So interesting. I really enjoyed this.... Have been having some thoughts similar to this lately. About, like, my own capacity for blind self-righteous anger. Its weird... that sort of reality distortion that comes over us when something feels threatening or "incorrect." Definitely important to be curious and investigative. This is very nutritious stuff! I love your writing. :) <3