A gift to the mosquitoes
For twenty minutes one afternoon, I fed my blood to mosquitoes. I sat on a piece of bark beside a small wetland—legs bent, hands gripping my knees. I had to hold still because if I even so much as twitched a finger, the mosquitoes would pull out their proboscises and fly away. If you are going to give a gift, you have to give it freely.
Mosquitoes depend on blood from humans—and other mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians—for the survival of their species. This doesn’t mean that they eat blood. In fact, it is only the females who draw our blood, and only for the purpose of nourishing their offspring. They store the blood in their abdomens where the protein and iron feed the developing eggs. Mosquitoes depend on human charity to keep their life cycle going. That is why they came to mind when I looked for a gift I could give nature.
My interest in gift-giving was born one summer afternoon as I lay on a blanket in the sun reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer is a Potowatomi botanist whose writing is full of lessons from the earth. In a chapter about pecans, I read, “How generously they shower us with food, literally giving themselves so that we can live. But in the giving, their lives are also ensured (20)”. I learned that nature operates on a gift economy--each species surviving through the giving and receiving of gifts. I decided I wanted to join the circle of gift-giving, but what gift could I give?
I went on a walk to brainstorm an answer. I felt the cool forest mud squeezing up between my toes and thought of ideas such as picking up trash, minimizing the use of my car, and buying organic tomatoes. These ideas did not satisfy me, and I realized it was because they weren’t gifts. These actions were ways to lessen the harm I inflict on nature—and by all means, I should do them—but I wanted to do more than just neutralize my impact on the earth. I wanted to give nature something that would tip the scale of my influence past neutral to positive.
A humming noise interrupted my thoughts, and I absent-mindedly slapped my thigh. A smear of blood on my hand caught my attention. Blood! Jesus’ ultimate gift to humanity was a gift of blood. Blood was something I had, and it was something that another species needed. Kimmerer’s words came to mind: “What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself?” (38). My first idea—and only idea that day—was to give the mosquitoes a gift of my blood.
The next day, in a spirit of jubilance most people would deem entirely unfitting for the occasion, I pulled on a T-shirt and pair of shorts, walked down to the woods, and set the timer on my watch for twenty minutes. I decided to use that time—as well as a couple hours on my computer that evening— to learn all I could about the mosquitoes’ blood-sucking practice. The focus on learning proved a good distracting from the unpleasantness of the ordeal, and I watched each mosquito with the intentness of a fox eyeing a flock of adolescent geese.
When a female mosquito found me, she would buzz around for a little while, scoping out a good spot to land. Mosquitoes use a combination of chemical, heat, taste, and visual receptors to find a host and pick an area where blood is plentiful. After landing, she would lower her needle—called a proboscis, into my skin. The intense burning sensation that accompanied the initial prick made me fight to keep from slapping. But after a couple of seconds, the urge to itch would subside and I could watch the rest of the procedure in anesthetized comfort.
Once the proboscis broke the surface of my skin, it was lowered until it was completely submerged. I learned that before extracting my blood, the mosquito would give me a dose of saliva containing agents meant to block blood-clotting, platelet formation, and blood vessel constriction. Only after disarming my body’s response mechanisms would the mosquito begin the extraction. There was something gratifying about watching the mosquito’s abdomen fill with my blood. Just when the mosquito was so swollen I wondered how she could possibly carry that much weight through the air, she would pull up her proboscis and disappear.
Only once during those twenty minutes was I overtaken by panic and driven to swat a mosquito. It was not the prick of a proboscis that took me over the edge. I learned to wait out that unpleasantness by gripping my knees with my hands. What irritated me was the sound the mosquitoes made as they flew near my ears. It is the whine of the female’s wings that attracts the male mosquito looking for a mate. But to me, the sound was more annoying than attractive. The mosquito I swatted was an especially loud whiner, and I admit, I was thankful when it was silenced.
I developed an appreciation for the mosquitoes who did their business in respectful silence. Still, I tried to do my best to tolerate the louder guests because it dawned on me that we humans are more often like them than the silent gift-takers. We take gifts from nature without even the decency to hold back our complaints.
I felt a bond with each pregnant mosquito who took my blood. “Take this gift,” I would tell her as I watched her belly swell. “Take this gift and use it to nourish your babies.” I did not say this because I particularly like mosquitoes and want there to be more in the world. I said it because I had chosen to give a gift, and when you do that, you must put your own desires aside. The raspberry bush does not choose to whom it gives its berries. When it feeds me and you, it risks the possibility that we might take its seeds and drown them in a toilet instead of dispersing them throughout the woods and meadows. Nature does not hold back gifts because there is risk in the giving.
When twenty minutes had passed, I stood up, put on my backpack, and walked home. I had given my gift. I had joined the community. A couple of mosquitoes followed me out of the woods, buzzing in my ears and pricking my skin. I slapped them without shame.