I managed not to hurt it as I brushed it off.
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I think I'm broken lol.
I've never had a fear response to spiders (or other critters for the most part). I remember being about five, walking through the woods with my grandmother and seeing this beautiful thing hanging on a web. She tells me this story about how the spider can write your name in the web, and god will see it and if you've been nice to the spider, he will bless you.
Now, obviously, we ran across an argiope aurantia (fairly common "writing" spider). But I wanted to pet it so bad, but mamaw said that spiders don't like being petted, and god didn't mean for them to be touched.
The religion part didn't stick, but I remember being struck by the way the light through the trees made the spider glow a little. There was no fear for me, just this sense of joy that I had seen it.
But, while these little brown babies aren't as photogenic as most argiopae, my thought when I see them is cuddly because of how fuzzy they look lol.
No joke, if I close my eyes, I can still see that spider hanging there, suspended on gossamer in the sunlight, like some kind of magic.
That's really cool, and I'm sure a lot of people would rather have that kind of response.
My wife and daughter and both pretty significantly arachnophobic. It's interesting because we're a pretty "sciency" bunch, and intellectually they think spiders are cool, but they have a visceral, extreme reactions to even little spiders that are too close.
I have almost no fear of them as long as I know they aren't especially venomous; I'll regularly carry them outside in my hand. But that big thing scrambling up my chest so close to my face really got my heart working.