Spiders

I want to be a friend of the earth.

But some of the other earthlings want to kill me, so I kill them first.

I was reading about the Jains the other day, and then they came up in conversation -- you know, the religious sect in India that's ancient as the mud and believes in harming no thing, even dust mites. Adherents walk around with coffee filters on their noses so they don't breathe in and kill bugs.

Of course, it is fitting that I was reading about Jains after getting so mad about my inability to avoid harming things because of mass production and contamination, etc. I feel like I'm a Jain trapped in a Jane Doe of America's body. I want to be one of those animals in a Disney film, who, instead of eating that tasty-looking antelope, performs a duet with her about the circle of life while tap-dancing on a talking tortoise.

Life is, unfortunately, messy and bloody, no matter how many coffee filters you smother over your face. And there is the sin of omission pestering about, too.

So yeah, I killed the spiders on our porch this afternoon. I'm pretty sure I saw white on the belly of that one. I suppose we could have just moved it somewhere else, but I was holding my baby in my arms, and like most mothers, I'm murderous when it comes to protecting my children.

Just like Kali, the Hindu mother-goddess...