We do love a good peek at bugs here for sure but the biting, dive bombing your eyes and latching on to suck your blood kind of bugs? Hmmm, maybe not so much.
Now, I totally get and have an appreciation for our place in the natural order of things and do realize that critters that carry illness that may effect or have effected my children are part of that order...the great balancing act of nature. Still? It bites. Literally and figuratively.
My kids have always been outside. Even when we lived in the city with just the one, we sought out green spaces, did rainy day walks to splash and save worms stranded on the sidewalks, fed ducks in the park...connected as best we could with our natural surroundings.
Living where we do now? Insanely easy for that connection to be made. So, these kids have always been outside (fall mud puddle playing
babies? a hearty yes!). Lately? Frankly, I'm scared. Like the real kind of scared...the" I may as well be sending them off to play in the middle of the busy street" kind of scared.
Our hike today to our hands down favorite local trail was, yes, a bummer due to the diving black flies but it was the fear of ticks that got me. Every blade of grass we brushed against, every low limb, every rock they climbed over...it was there. Lurking.
Now, we've always been tick aware and done the checks, sure sometimes we were likely slacking and not checking as much as we should have (kids crashing asleep pre-check...and other life stuff ) but now? Checking them multiple times a day. Asking about where they played outside. Yet, trying not to make them as afraid as I feel....just aware. Just another part of taking care of themselves. Like brushing their teeth. I think its working...
Still, I see the woods and outside spaces differently now. I don't want to, but its there. Trying to get over this hurdle has been tricky. I thought tackling it by taking a walk on our favorite trail would help. All was good (minus the black flies). I checked them quickly before we got back into the van then we headed for our town beach since there was hardly a black fly in sight there. We were sitting by the water admiring the lake, chatting a bit...then I heard it...my daughter's wail. "Mama, there's a tick!". The rushing to get it off, yes baby, that's a tick....and not just one, but two crawling on your pants heading to the gap between your shirt and your pants to where some bare skin can be accessed.
Where did they came from? I have no idea. But those buggers? They're everywhere. And you know what scares me is not only the illnesses they carry but the system that we have in place that doesn't acknowledge the complexity of the illnesses they carry...or the treatment of those illnesses.
So we stay vigilant.
And respect our place.
And try to take off these new glasses now and then and remember the connection that we felt and feel with nature...and acknowledge that those little buggers? They are completely a part of that. And maybe little reminders of how off balance we're pushing nature...and maybe, just maybe, nudging us in the direction of....well, balance.
Making indelible how the scent of those Narcissus fill the kitchen and that little wackadoodle on roller skates (might I add, from the moment she's out of bed in the morning to the second she's reluctantly tucked back in at night).
Although we're all a little afraid for our toes with those wheels spinning all day and the sound of skates on bare wood (hello, ongoing updating!) can be a little, well....loud...Our house will be all too quiet soon enough.
