Catching Crystal Spider Webs

I took this photo near our house this morning. Lovely, no? It has a bit of a bittersweet story behind it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went for a run in the early morning. The prairie is so pretty at that time anyway, but on this particular day, it was breathtaking. The weather had been very humid for a few days, and morning dew covered everything.

As I jogged around a curve in the path, I noticed the sunlight hit just so on a spider web, and I had to stop in my tracks. This huge web was covered in dewdrops – every inch of it. It looked like it had been spun out of crystal. I never knew spider webs could be so beautiful. It was so incredibly perfect, I wished I was closer to the house so I could grab my camera and capture that moment.

Continuing my run, I started to notice these crystal spider webs every twenty feet or so. The prairie was covered in them. And as the sun rose higher, they shone like chandeliers from the cattails and milkweed. It was amazing. At that point, I totally lamented not having my camera, or at least someone to see and share this unreal sight with me. I knew it would be too hard to describe.

But by the time I finished my run, the sun was fully above the horizon, and the dew was mostly evaporated. I had so hoped to be able to go back and take pictures of those webs, but the opportunity was gone. I told myself I’d go back out another morning with the camera and catch them.

But, as life happens, I slept too late most mornings, and then started taking my run in the late afternoon. I kept thinking about trying for those webs again, but it just didn’t happen. Then this morning, BoyWonder woke me up at 6:00, so I decided to take advantage of it. I got dressed, grabbed the camera, and headed out to the prairie.

There was some dew, and the sunrise was lovely, but I couldn’t find a single spider web. It had been pretty windy the past couple of days, so they must have gotten destroyed. I looked everywhere, but every last one of them was gone.

I walked around and took some other photos, like the one above. I think that one turned out pretty cool. But it’s no crystal spider web.

The air this morning was cool and fresh. The color of the sunrise on the houses and trees was warm and serene. It was a perfectly lovely morning. But it’s hard not to compare it to the indescribable wonder of those webs.

That’s the bittersweet story.

Makes me wonder how much beauty we fail to capture because we’re too far into our run to turn around and grab the camera.

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