I’m sitting in the office of my apartment as I type, and right in front of me is a huge window. I can hear the breeze rustling the leaves, and can see the effects as the branches bend.

But I cannot open the window, because there is no screen. Last night I woke up at 2:30 in the morning after having been asleep for a few hours. I wandered around waxing philosophical about how it used to be 4:30 before I’d have even thought about going to sleep in the first place, but while I’ll always look back with fondness at greeting the morning commuters with Carly and Natty as we were just heading towards bedtime, now I have the memories of that, and I have my best friend sleeping in the next room. Often when I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s because I’m very anxious, so I try to count my blessings instead. Last night, two came to mind without even having to try.

Filled with peace, I knew that sleep would return easily, and prepared to go back to bed. It was then that I saw The Spider.

Now, I actually like spiders. I don’t kill them, and I don’t ask my boyfriend to kill them for me. But damn if last night I didn’t have the immediate urge to go wake up Josh and tell him there was a spider in the bathtub, and could he please deal with it!

Because this spider was kinda big and though I wasn’t exactly afraid of it, it was startling. I also didn’t want the cats battling it, nor did I want it crawling around my bed.

Then I remembered thinking not one minute ago how peaceful Josh seemed, and I realized I had to Woman Up and deal with The Spider myself. I went downstairs and got a glass, then wished desperately for just one of our new coasters at Townhouse. Instead, I grabbed an envelope, unopened because it’s just Capital One taunting me for more credit cards I’ll never get, and headed back upstairs.

The Spider was still there, playing dead. While capturing him, I tried to explain that I wasn’t going to hurt him, which of course got me thinking about “Dexter,” until I got frustrated as the bathroom window wouldn’t open.

“We’re going to have to relocate, Spider; stay put,” I said as we went into the office. This screen appeared to have a latch, but as I pressed on it, the screen fell out of the window and went down, down, and landed. Though it didn’t weigh much, it was good to hear it land without the accompanying sound of an animal yelping or running. It seemed to just lightly fall into some leaves and sticks, as the back area of our place is just a little space of trees and a hill.

While I was willing to take care of the Spider situation in the middle of the night, I was not so much willing to climb through a dark expanse of land to retrieve a screen. Instead, I said goodbye to the Spider and wished him well before letting him go join the screen below. Then I went back to bed.

This morning or rather should I say this afternoon, I woke up to fetch the screen. Even though I’ve passed the little valley behind my house, and have seen it from the windows a million times, I’ve never actually been in it. It was pretty exciting, clambering through the branches and crackling through dead twigs and leaves, even moreso when I saw the screen, still intact.

Since it was the afternoon (though to my credit, I did take a shower first), the sun was streaming through the tops of the trees, and since it is September, the valley behind my house today was this perfect combo of two of my very favorite places to be – in the woods on a late-summer afternoon, and in the autumn leaves, anywhere.

Just one of those moments a year can make it feel like a successful Autumn. And now when I look out the office window, I can appreciate the beauty in a more visceral way, though the window remains closed. Because while I also set up a cat perch by myself today, re-installing the screen is where I break down and ask Josh for help, as clearly, I cannot be trusted with windows.

Godspeed, Spider. Thank you for such an unexpectedly lovely day!