Penny Post #53: Bug Bites

The season of itching.

It is the season of itching.

The season where little almost-imperceptible bumps appear on my skin, as if out of nowhere. I itch them once before I’m tormented by a relentless urge to itch, scratch, and pick them off of my skin.

I don’t remember how I got most of these bug bites. They seem to appear suddenly, for I don’t remember the familiar pinch of a bug nesting its syringe in my skin for a coveted taste of blood. I know that I’ve spent more time outside and that the warm weather preempts the bugs’ arrival.

It is the season of itching, one I’ve come to expect year in and year out.

What I don’t expect, though I should know better given my proclivity to dig for meaning in even the smallest of offerings, is how wondrous I find this natural exchange. I didn’t consent to be scavenged for blood by some tiny-little vampire and yet I now bear the consequence of our meeting.

Why bugs desire blood I do not know. How bugs find their preferred patches of skin—on my ankle, on my neck, tucked under my earlobe—and dig for their own iron-rich meaning I do not know. How bugs do their worst damage without alerting me to their presence until hours or days later when I discover a unwanted bump along smooth skin, I do not know. I don’t wish to know how or why; I only wish to wonder at this curious natural phenomenon.

We are tied together. Bugs suck up my blood into their tiny little bodies for an impervious amount of time, before, eventually, both me and the bug forget our crossing of paths and move on to other humans and insects, respectively.

Some bugs carry dreadful and debilitating disease, of which I’ve been lucky enough to remain a stranger to. I hope to never meet those bugs nor bear their bites.

Photo by Shannon Potter on Unsplash

Although I deign to itch my summertime skin when the insects descend, I’m soon reminded that I’m part of the natural world’s rhythm. I’m besotted that one of the millions of bugs at any moment in time decided to nest on the surface of my skin, taking some of my life source and making it its own.

These feelings sprouted after reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s spellbinding The Signature of All Things. The title refers to how resources embedded in nature often reveal their function to humans with their characteristics. It undergirds the understanding that all of creation is interconnected.

Expertly borrowed from Jacob Böhme’s treatise, Liz writes:

God had hidden clues for humanity's betterment inside the design of every flower, leaf, fruit, and tree on Earth. All the natural world was a divine code, Böhme claimed, containing proof of our Creator's love. This is why so many medicinal plants resembled the diseases they were meant to cure, or the organs they were able to treat. Basil, with its liver-shaped leaves, is the obvious ministration for ailments of the liver. The celandine herb, which produces a yellow sap, can be used to treat the yellow discoloration brought on by jaundice. Walnuts, shaped like brains, are helpful for headaches. Coltsfoot, which grows near cold streams, can cure the coughs and chills brought on by immersion in ice water. Polygonum, with its spattering of blood-red markings on the leaves, cures bleeding wounds of the flesh. And so on, ad infinitum.

I carry a little tube of cortisone around in my purse during the season of itching. Its ingredients remind me of our rhythmic existence, one bound to a meaningful relationship between the natural and the synthetic. One bound to itch bug bites every summer while the sun warms my bare skin and I feverishly apply cortisone.

And so on, ad infinitum.

Until next time,

Kiera