Something Universal

Every summer, since I was about nine, my family has vacationed at Popham beach, in Bath Maine. This event comes from one of those  summers, when I was probably ten or so. Popham Beach is long and slopping at low tide. It's one of the few truly sandy beaches in Maine, and the water is usually moderately warm.  I remember playing in the surf, fairly close to shore, when for some reason or another, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a small blue speck, far off in the distance. It was a fairly unimportant speck, nothing about it was particularly interesting. It was just a blue dot amongst the surf, drifting in the waves, and it caught my interest. I'm not sure why I decided to swim to it, probably I was just bored, but I like to think it was a calling, not necessarily of a higher power but something from inside my me. I remember the water being very deep, over my head by the time I reached my destination. From about twenty feet away I could tell clearly what it was, and I was disappointed. It was just a blue piece of Styrofoam probably the size of my fist, essentially trash. However, at that point I wasn't about to give up and go back, so I decided to swim the last twenty feet, if only to not feel completely idiotic. When I came closer to the small blue piece of Styrofoam, I realized that the long swim out may have been worth it after all.  I remember not immediately registering what my eyes saw. The juxtaposition of it caused one of those rare moments when you question things, absolute things; foundations. It was so out of place, surreal and yet...fantastic. Upon that small piece of blue Styrofoam, bobbing in the Atlantic about 75 meters off the coast of Maine, was a spider, clinging to its make shift raft for dear life. It was about the same size as the styrofoam, so that all eight of its legs were centimeters from the ocean depths.  I had never seen a spider that looked as this one did, and I haven't seen one since. It was an inch or two in size, and was colored a reddish brown. It was also hairy, I remember that. If not for its size and location I would have thought it was a tarantula. I still don't know exactly what species it was. My first thought was to rescue this arachnid from its inevitable death by the crashing waves closer to shore.  I held the spider and his raft in one hand, and swam back with my three remaining limbs.  I remember wondering, as I still do, where did this creature come from? How did it get where it was? Was it perhaps the sole survivor of some distant shipwreck? Or maybe a drifter from a far away tropical island? One thing I knew for sure, was that this was clearly the luckiest spider in the world. It never would have survived the trip inland, as its meager raft of garbage would have been toppled by crashing waves. I remember walking back on the beach with the spider in my hand, feeling as though I accomplished something. I let the small creature go into the grassy dunes, watched as it scurried away into its new environment, looking free and somehow grateful. Before and since that day I have saved many spiders, from varying fates, but I don't think I'll ever remember any of them, most not even at all, like the way I remember this. It felt as though, by a purpose greater than my world and reality, that I and that small spider were part of something. Something simple and absolute, bigger than ourselves; mind and body. Something, Universal.