We didn’t dawdle over tea, but rather headed out in the early morning. It would be a very long day. (Despite all our efforts, we still set up in the dark that night.) Moving through the cool early morning air was like stealing time. Or like sipping rare glacial waters in crystal. Our eyes brightened.

We paddled. We portaged. We creek-dragged the canoe in the fresh stream up to our knees. We spoke in quiet tones. We did like it did, like morning did. 

For hours and hours, morning lingered. We portaged forth and back and forth in shifts through the marsh with our canoe and bags. The dew on the tall grasses, still in the shade of the ridge, caressed my bare legs. The day would soon be hot. But now, it did nothing but be. For its own sake. Lazily, messageless. 

In one spot, where the shade met the sun, I stopped and said: Look. 

The grass was almost waist-high. Woven between the criss-crossing strands were soft white diamond triangles. They hung dew-dropped and alight in the eastern sun, like tiny upside-down tee-pees. They posed all around us, as if in waiting. Opaque sleeves of white against the green blades of grass. 

I had no business doing so, but I touched one. It was so fine, so so fine, finer than lingerie, more than naked. It disappeared instantly, leaving but a faint echo of moisture on my finger. Mary Ann touched one too. Young girls discovering the mysteries of nature. 

Because we were living outside, up close and personal with it down to every detail, we’d been saying: Nature has a purpose for everything.

DaVinci says it better: 

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

It makes her sound very efficient. And completely oblivious to anyone’s opinion of her.

No invention without necessity. (We do stuff regardless of necessity all the time, don’t we? Or do we? Impulse comes from somewhere, even if nefarious.) Would the spiders who wove those fragile webs trap a tiny bug and eat it for breakfast? Would they drink the dew? Would they bathe in it?

She has her own laws. Talk about being oblivious. 

I can’t unsee the webs, and now, having written about them, can’t forget them. I can’t unfeel their touchlessness. Or stop the flow of feelings and thoughts about beauty and fleetingness they created. 

The webs in the grass have changed me. But not I, them. Not a bit. Except the one I touched. That one’s forever changed.