Chiggers!

I like wetlands as well as the next person. Om mani padme om: the lotus bud is opening. It feels holy, nature unfolding as it will. I love the fecund smell of the algae permeating the air and the multitude of sounds. Frogs trilling, turtles paddling, snakes slithering, herons beating their wings as they alight, the soft whir of the neon blue, the shining emerald dragonflies. I even love the unholy screeches from deep in the thick jungle of vines, Spanish moss and knobby cypress knees. 

Mosquitoes buzzing, well, not my favorite sound. But honestly, I have a newfound respect for mosquitoes. For the very fact that you can hear them. And you can see them. You know when they’ve landed on you. And you can swat them. You have a fighting chance. Truth is, I’ve been avoiding the northern forests because mosquito bites remained in the forefront of my memories of childhood summers in upper Michigan. The plan for the first leg of this trip was to swing south. I’d stop in at my old stomping grounds, places I’d lived: St. Pete, Austin, El Paso, L.A., making pit stops in Gulf Shores and New Orleans, catching local music along the way. I’d go north only after it cooled down enough to abate the mosquito population had abated or stick to the higher altitudes.

But when I crafted this summer’s itinerary, I hadn’t given a thought to chiggers. It had been nearly fifty years since I’d lived in Alabama and been attacked. I do still recall my confusion as to what I was covered with, the pharmacist telling me I had measles. That seemed unlikely as I hadn’t been around any children. The ultimate diagnosis was chiggers. My co-workers said they buried themselves in your skin and you had to suffocate them with nail polish. Back then it was pretty much mandatory for women to wear pantyhose in the workplace. So I was really uncomfortable. Turns out now that we have access to scientific literature unlike the days when old wives tales ruled, that was not even true. They don’t bury themselves in your skin. It just feels like they are still there because the pain doesn't subside until the sores finally dry up. 

Most literature notes that they are too tiny to be seen, but if you did see one, it’s red. A teeny tiny red mite, adults having eight legs. I did see a small red mite on my campsite picnic table, but it was large enough that it would have had some weight. Enough to feel. I mean, you can feel a soft breeze blowing through the hair on your arms, so I would imagine I could have felt the eight legs of the little red bug I saw. 

But all of the literature says that chiggers can’t be felt. I can attest to that. I was feeling perfectly fine strolling down the hiking trails at Goose Creek. I did stop and sit on a stump amidst some high grass at one point for a little while as I wrote a card to a friend. And although I did not feel any change, my guess is that was the genesis of the personal hell I would endure over the following muggy days and nights. They hang out in rotting wood and tall grass. I was immersed in what I wanted to say to my friend and had no clue that an army of transparent, weightless mites were crawling up my legs, over my arms, heading inward, insidiously searching for my softest spots where they could stick their razor sharp probosces into the depths of my most sensitive skin. They actually liquified my tissue and then sucked the juicy parts up over the next many hours and even days. When they became just too engorged, they simply fell over. I’m pretty sure that my assailants just laid around on my soft body burping and expelling clusters eggs and waste until they were hungry again, when they climbed back up on me, probably as I was innocently dreaming and they had free reign to assiduously search for the most embarrassing and difficult places to scratch, like in my underwear, under my armpit and breasts and those spots on my back I can’t reach. Several made their home under my knees as well.

I didn’t feel any pain at all the first day. But the next day, red welts began surfacing. At random places. And they didn’t simply itch. They stung like a wasp sting. Stinging over and over. Scratching only made the pain sharper. More appeared. And then more. 

The welts were swollen and hot to the touch. I developed a fever from so much destruction. When would they stop? I was staying at a primitive campground at Goose Creek State Park, North Carolina meaning there were no hot showers. I scrubbed pretty hard with a loofa and peppermint soap oil cold water just the same. Since they were invisible I couldn’t be sure how effective my repeated attempts were. With each subsequent day, more appeared. I counted 42, just so I would know when they stopped. The literature says don’t worry about them staying on your clothes or in your bedsheets as they can’t live without a host present for 24-48 hours. They are not bed bugs after all, meaning that they are not sly in the way of adapting to living in mattresses. Well, I sleep every 14 hours or so, so I wasn’t exactly covered by that caveat. I shook my sheets and blankets pretty hard and tried to sequester the clothes I’d worn. But how could I know where they might be crawling about? 

As I scratched and scratched, I imagined them absolutely everywhere. In my hairbrush, on my car seat, on my spork, in my hammock. The world was not a beautiful place anymore and I wasn’t about to go any further south. I’m going north to explore the parks in Canada after the Mountain Music festival. Somewhere I have a fighting chance. I’ve had my quota of insect bites for the year. Even as a hybrid Buddhist, I won’t hesitate to kill a mosquito landing on me.