On the tradeoff of Hikes and Ticks
Behind my knee, there is an unhealed insect bite. The kind that mostly itches in your brain, perhaps harmless, but unable to escape my involuntary touch. Uninfected, but whispers the ‘What-ifs’ in my ears.
I live in tick country. These arachnids are everywhere - nesting in the backyard grasses and lying in wait on the mountain trails. Up here, they are feared most for Lyme disease, a debilitating attack on your immune system, and more recently, their pesky cousins from West Virginia infiltrated, bringing their own set of lifelong symptoms, ensuring the infected will never eat red meat again.
Still, I hike.
Not out of a choice, precisely, but out of a need. My body and brain require the connection to the dirt and rocks and trees.
I am a hiker. And every hike carries a risk of infection, but every day I don't hike feels like a small death. So I gear up. Leggings. Socks over the ankles. But the sesame-seed-sized devils always find a way. Daily showering and inspection can only get one so far in escaping the parasitic transfer of this mite-in-waiting.
And now I sit with the bite and await the bullseye.
Unwilling, perhaps even unable, to give up my daily hikes. The tick could have come from my front lawn as easily as the fields, or as a clever hanger-on to my pet. And only 4% of the critters are infected, so the odds are ever in my favor.
We saw how that ended.
I enter into the negotiation with my brain. I don't smoke. I don't drink. I eat the vegetables. I floss.
Give me this one vice. The daily communion with Gaia. And keep the punishment to a minimum.
Let the bite just be a bite.
