crazy makers… a practice

My husband thinks I’m nuts. This isn’t really news, per se, but he has new reasons for questioning my sanity.

I mark this as a sign of growth and ongoing success on my part.

The latest cause for his subtle head-shakes is my regular choice of willingly communing with an unfriendly squadron of mosquitoes.

I’m as surprised as he is, truth be told. They’re one of my least favorite parts of my home state.

It’s been a year-and-a-half since I started my daily hiking ritual at the local preserve. No, I’m not there every day. For the first year, it was pretty damned close though, barring travel, illness, or temperatures in either negative or triple digits. And still, 18 months down the road, I’m there most days. Takes a lot to keep me away.

The problem with summer in the Wisco latitudes–besides the ever-climbing temperatures and humidity, thank you, climate change–is the mosquitoes. (Well, OK, the ticks are an even bigger problem, but that’s a rant for another time.)

Every year–oh, say, around late June-ish–my beloved preserve hatches out it’s own ravenous population of swarming hypodermics. And so it is that for the rest of summer, or at least the rest of July, I’m generally the only sop on the trails.

We’re a month into the 2025 season, and I will say, they could make you crazy fast. We’re not talking a few pesky skeeters; we’re talking armies. Single-minded armies.

Last year, when the river gave way to it’s burst of hungry hatchlings, I figured out right quick that my daily walks were on the chopping block if I didn’t adapt immediately. Well, not right quick. I returned for a few days in my regular shorts and T-shirt attire, in ill-conceived hopes that the onslaught was temporary. It should be noted that this body does not run, but on those days, it sure did run. You could die out there.

Schooled by the skeeter, I made the vital alterations to my routine.

From then on that summer, and immediately upon the great hatching of 2025, I awoke early, so as to hike as cool as possible, donned my thinnest pants and my loosest sun-shirt, topped my noggin with a baseball cap and the hood of that sun-shirt, and then draped a very fashionable mosquito net down over the whole headdress. Bride of Blood Bug. Then I walked fast and swatted mercilessly. These were not the relaxing hikes of days gone by.

I have to say, I think they’re worse this year. I don’t recall the clouds being quite this thick. Stopping to take a picture is an instant invitation for dozens to rest their weary wings and direct their nozzles skin-ward. Instant. My hands and feet are still bare while I hike, lest I combust out there, and failure to keep ’em movin’ at a brisk enough pace will also result in regrets. The worst, though, is simply the noise. That low whine is incessant and unnerving. I’m Pigpen out there with his attendant cloud, and the hover radius clocks in at only a few inches from my head; the din of their little gears grinding is loud.

You might be covered, you might have the game in hand, but that constant wail in your ears can amp up some industrial-grade anxiety nonetheless.

This year, I’ve been working on my hiking Zen. I know what to wear, I know what speed I have to walk at. I know how to do this thing while keeping all my blood. I know by experience that I’m confounding the little buggers, and my person is not actually in danger of death by drill bit, but that noise it can get to you, and is likely to cause your 20-minute mile to drop into zippier zones.

So this year, I’m taking the lemons of mosquito season at the preserve and squeezing out some neurological downregulation training. I’m walking through the hordes like a monk, conversing calmly with my assailants like they’re little hiking buddies, holding awareness of the beauty beyond the (literal) veil, and keeping my pace in check as best I can; that of my feet, but also of my heart. I need the cardio, I do, but I’d rather have it come from actual exercise rather than an amped up fight or flight.

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I say I’m working on my hiking Zen, and it’s kinda funny, but it’s not entirely tongue in cheek. Honestly, I can’t think of better training in dealing with the shitstorms of life.

My little daily sit is good training, and carrying that mindfulness into everyday life, extrapolating the practice outward like radio waves, works on you slowly and makes big changes at a glacial pace. It’s good stuff. But if I’m honest, when the shit really hits the fan, which it always does at maddeningly regular intervals (I could do without the constancy of this), all my training is often overtaken by the immediacy and horror of the splatter.

Those glacial changes are real, and for them I am grateful and better under pressure, but learning to hold my shit together in the space of that anxiety-riddled hike might be more of the Intensive I need. A clinic on cool in chaos, if you will.

Honestly, the mock shitshow and skillset needed for said shitshow all seems to be there. It’s basically a high-level shitshow drill:

Mock Shitshow (Circumstances beyond our control):

• Life, as in all true shitshows, is swarming around wildly, screaming and wielding pokers. Total sensory overload coupled with potential blood. We don’t go looking for this shit. (Unless it’s robbing you of your hike.)

Check.

Critical skillset (Opportunities for response rather than reaction):

• Shifting sympathetic responses down a gear or seven into a calm, parasympathetic state. Downregulation 101.
• Recognition of safety when all signs point to death. Clear sight; more is in our control than we think.
• Refusal to amplify the enemy’s advantage through panic and return fire. No need to make the show worse by adding our own shit.
• Seeing the enemy as a me I’ve yet to meet. There are always lessons to learn.
• Finding the beauty and light that still surrounds and envelops, even through camo nylon netting (and other variously obscuring filters). Life beyond the shitshow exists, even when you can’t see it. Stay grounded.

Check.

Yeah, I think it’s pretty much all there.

I’m not nuts; I’m practicing.

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I wrote most of this post last week, but had to head off to help the Greasemonkey Kid move house before I could hit send.

Upon return from the great state of Minnesota (the mosquito is the state bird of MN as well as Wisco; we share well), I’m back on the trail.

Today’s mindful walk was rewarded richly:

The bumble motels were mostly cleared out, but a few sleepers-in remained abed.

My golden oyster patch blew it’s top over the weekend while I was away. Oyster chips on the way!

And the skeets? They showed the first signs of die-off, right on cue. It appears my Intensive may be coming to a close. And I’m OK with that.

Deep Breath. I bet there are other teachers waiting in the wings.