Spider, man

So I walk up the stairs of the downtown, vintage 1970s or '80s parking garage. (What's the Brit or Irish term, carpark?) Well, this structure is not a park setting; it is muscular and rusted and garnished with girders and nuts and bolts. Fortunately, my employer pays the monthly parking fee. (Unfortunately, I have fallen from the habit of taking the bus at least once or twice a week. Not sure why. Getting up too late?) One can discern how late one is by where one is forced to park (oh! that's the park in carpark. I get it.). In other words, the later you are, the higher the deck you are parking on. If it's a roof day, you're likely checking in past 9 a.m., after your date with the therapist or the OB-GYN or your inability to pry yourself from under the covers. I reach the flight for the fourth floor. I am arrested by the site of a spiderweb above the stair railing, near one of the massive girders holding the structure together. My day is a day of stress and tension and deadlines. I am stepping out for a lunchtime appointment. At the center of the intricate web, illuminated by afternoon sun offset by corner shadows, is the spider himself or herself (who spins the web? males? females? a little help, please, Botanist Colleague). Still. A fleshy color (pinkish-yellow with a darker portion at the center of its body) but partially semitransparent. I count the tiny (a quarter-inch long?) creature's eight legs. Or am I looking at six legs and two antennae? No, I'd say these are eight legs. I pause. I stop. I stare. I spy the spider's eyes: two dots perhaps smaller than the periods in the documents seen minutes before. Is it staring at me, fearful of its very life? This arresting moment is an occasion of grace, I realize. I bow before the spider. I really do. I bow. Then I smile, shrug my shoulders, and walk to my car, lighter, freer, and blessed. It is the benediction moment of my day. A moment of clairvoyance, quite literally. It was all there -- for anyone attentive and awake enough to see it. Like any moment of grace.