Summer stretches into presence, her attendance announced by the imminent buzz of mosquitoes and a resounding swat as a hand hits flesh. Warm weather won’t worry the absence of wet days but rain collected in barrels becomes a hot spot—a not-spot for bare arms or legs.
I remember my daughter at a young child when she returned from summers at the farm, boasted a phenomenal array of bites. They seemed to like her, and she would scratch, and they, sadly would swell and blotch her skin like polka dots. I remember the bed, a canopy of mosquito netting warding off attacks at night. The errand bug buzzing irritatingly close yet inconceivably invisible or the clap of hands slapping air and then the sting as the sucking straw siphon dug in for a sip.
I’d find the Zen of it myself, somehow when it was my turn. Allow the pest its blood- because she had chosen me, and there was nothing I could do, just breath into it and get it over. I may as well find some impermanence in the moment because all the claps and slaps never quite eradicated their peskiness or the inevitability of it all.
Now, I’m settling in for the season welcoming the warmth, the heat and any accompanying airstream, breeze or waft to help keep the bugs at bay, finding equanimity and practicing loving kindness and compassion as much as I am able after my skin, like my daughters once-upon-a-time ago, turns into a swollen red amalgam.
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