Pests

Kent, CT

Lionheart said he had never had a good birthday. He told me something terrible always happened on his birthday. Growing up it was always a fight between his parents and when he was a teenager it was a fight between him and his parents. As an adult, one birthday he got deployed to Iraq, for another he was in rehab for a heroin addiction, on another his girlfriend ran off with her drug dealer.

I made it my mission to plan a happy birthday for him. I wanted to be what he needed and he needed a good birthday. He had been through so much. I paid for a hotel room in Kent, CT where I would pass through that day. Lionheart would meet me at the nearest road crossing the next day.

Connecticut was beautiful. I hiked through rivers, over plush pine needles, and stood at waterfalls that sprayed me with mist. I listened to birds chirp. I felt the sunbeams shine through the forest canopy onto my face. It felt good to hike alone with my pack on.

I reached the shelter at the end of the day and no one was in it so I laid everything out to go to sleep. It was hot and wet out. Bugs were buzzing and chirping and owls were hooting. There were some mosquitoes I swatted away as the sun set on hiker midnight. I slid into my sleeping bag and zipped it up most of the way so the mosquitoes couldn’t bite me.

bzzzZZZZZZZ

BZZZZZZ

bbbbzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

They kept flying close to my face. I smacked them if I could. I turned over so they could only buzz in one of my ears. I started sweating - profusely. I was zipped up inside my bag and they were still buzzing loudly around my one ear and biting the cheek that was exposed. I would set up my tent but I had sent it with Lionheart because the weather was nice enough I didn’t think I’d need it especially with the prevalence of shelters. I unzipped my bag and opened my pack. I re-applied my Ben’s 100% deet bug repellent. I thought about how so much strong deet would probably give me cancer one day but in that moment, the mosquitoes seemed like the worse option.

As the night progressed, the air temperature got hotter as if the heat of the sun from the entire day had been sequestered by the one shelter I was in. It was more humid now that the wind had died down and every mosquito in the forest came to feast on the one hiker at the campsite - me.

I got my bug head net and put it over my head but it did not stop the irritating buzzing. It didn't even stop them from biting my face, it just slowed them down. Somehow they were getting inside my sleeping bag too and biting my legs and feet. No matter how many I smacked they just kept biting. There must have been hundreds and they wanted my blood.

I sat up again and rushed to get my long pants and rain jacket out of my pack before they could bite me. In the time it took to cover myself from head to toe in clothing I sustained probably forty bites on my arms and legs. I zipped my rain jacket up, put on the hood, and pulled the strings on the hood so that only my eyes and nose peeked out of the little face hole. I tightened the velcro around my wrists, slid back into my sleeping bag, and immediately started sweating buckets.

I lay in a pool of my own sweat the entire night. The mosquitoes buzzed loudly around my ears and eyes. They bit my feet through my socks. I tightly held my sleeping bag closed but the mosquitoes bit my fingers. I cried myself to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night being bitten, buzzed around, and sweating. I was so uncomfortable and I drifted between a twilight state and tears all night.

I woke up for the last time at 5AM and said THAT DOES IT. I packed up all my gear and decided to hike away from the mosquitoes. There must have been a breeding ground nearby because I had never encountered that many in one place so aggressive.

I took off down the trail and they took off after me. I walked faster and faster, trying to out pace them but those fuckers are fast. I started running down trail with a full pack and couldn’t out run them. I stopped and started crying but they kept buzzing which just made me more angry and frustrated. I cried hot tears. “Haven’t you had enough?” I screamed at them, scratching every little crevasse they had invaded on my body. I ripped open the velcro plastering my sleeves to my wrists and pools of sweat gushed out. This felt like a low for me.

I stopped under a tree right before the road crossing to write him a birthday card. The mosquitoes subsided as the sun came out. I don't remember all that I wrote but I told him what he wanted to hear - things I believed at the time.

I wrote:

My darling Lionheart,

Happy third decade of your life! I hope it is the best one thus far. Given what you’ve told me about the last two though, it seems like there’s a very good chance it will be! I would also like to think this will be the best decade for you because I hope I can join you for it. Hopefully that will make it the best decade of my life as well.

You asked me why I was initially interested in you but I never answered so here it is:

You have cute dogs and blue eyes. (That’s a joke)

I love how you question everything

I love that you’re always thinking deeply and critically

You are in a constant search for the moral path

You are Caring

You are Loving

You are always Learning

You are committed to change and growth

You are Courageous enough to be vulnerable

You are Brave enough to admit fault

You feel deeply and you are not afraid of feelings

You never give up

You are Honest

You are loving and affectionate

You have the heart of a lion

Time will tell how long we last but whether we last the rest of our life together or the rest of today I want you to know that I have cherished every moment with you – happy ones and the frustrating or challenging or trying ones. I hesitate to differentiate those moments by labeling them good and bad because I don’t believe in such dichotomies. You are the first person I have met who truly understands what I’ve been saying for years which is that moments, people, and circumstances are what you make them and I know that you are willing to work, as I am, to make each other’s lives as enriching, nourishing and full of love as possible.

I folded the letter and put it in my pack for the next day - his birthday. He picked me up and drove into town.