I am compassionate. She was crippled, that's true, but she was lonely and felt left out. Not much effort on the part of peer or mentor and she shyly said so when it came up. I was going to take the younger girls first, but there she was, lonely, stuck in a "not much happenin" space. So I boldly went. "Do you wanta learn to hunt spiders?"
She looked shocked. "Sure." So I gave her my headlamp and she shuffled her uneven gait into the darkness.
The first few spiders were a bust. I saw them, she didn't, until we got right on them and isolated them with a beam of light. Let me insert that I'd already checked out the spider population around the cabins and they were very small and nonpoisonous. Finally, she thought she saw one and we found it together.
Then I heard her say "There's one. Wow it's really bright." I looked and could see it even in her beam. Not normal. She was stumbling up the steep, dark hill with the eye in her focus. I was tickled at first at her enthusiasm. Then I thought, "What kind of spider has that big and bright an eye?"
Intelligence was barely kicking in when I reached her just as she said. "Oh it's a big spider!" I'm staring at the beam of light thinking "Who takes a crippled city girl up a hill in the dark to hunt spiders anyway? Oh heck! that's a tarantula." To my defense, I don't think it was a poisonous tarantula.
She shuffled stumbled quickly down the hill and I feared that she was scared witless just shy of bedtime. I took another younger camper out -the other direction. The hunt was easy, the gait was smooth and the child excited about all the little bitty spiders, mesmerized by the tiny emerald eyes.
As we came back to grab another taker, I heard the older girl talking to the other counselor. Her voice was animated and her words came fast as she was describing how to find a spider with a headlamp and how to track it. Then she told about the big spider and added quickly so as not to alarm the counselor, "But it was way up the hill so you don't have to worry."
I don't know if she had creepy crawly dreams, but I did see the light in her eyes. Yeah, I saw the look my peer gave me, but I realized that for a moment in time, this girl felt normal. I may do it again - on purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment