My sister Victoria’s house is surrounded by acres of what I call “just watch me” nature, which is nature that does whatever it wants to, and laughs in your face if you try to reason with it.
She also has a gorgeous garden and pond (but that’s not what this story is about.)
Growing up in Los Angeles, my experience with nature was isolated to trapped backyards, vines climbing and dying on brick, and curated little pockets of manicured trees and bushes.
This means that back when I visited my sister’s home for the first time and she suggested we go for a walk on the beautiful land surrounding her house, I, like a naive Nature Tourist, said yes.
I grabbed all of the essential eww-I’m-outside gear: wide-brimmed hat large enough to house a small family, anti-sun umbrella, permethrin-sprayed shoes and pants—basically everything needed to put a firm barrier between myself and any semblance of the natural world—warned my sister that I was about to get sweaty and smelly, and headed out into the Great Abyss (the outdoors) on her heels.
What followed was a delight: a strenuous, fragrant, sunny, holy-shit-I’m-out-of-shape delight. Turns out that carrying a heavy camera, contorting your body into various shapes and angles, and moving up and down enough times to impress any squat-champion is, uh, exhausting to say the least. I felt like a worn-out piece of elastic by the end, reduced to hand-signals and highly-synchronized puffs of breath to communicate.
Hopefully I came across as contemplative or in awe. Which I was, of course, but my thoughts were less “Wow, look at the majesty surrounding me!” and more:
“Holy fuck, I’m tired.”
“Shit, does it look like I’m tired? Do I look miserable? Will she think I’m miserable instead of happy to be here?”
“I am happy to be here!”
“…What did I just step in??”
“Holy fuck, I’m tired!”
…By the time we went back inside and checked ourselves for ticks like responsible, terrified adults who don’t want their lives upended by bite-transmitted illnesses, I was feeling good.
It was a lot of fun to see the world my sister has built for herself, and I enjoyed walking through it with her as my tour guide. And I was tick-free! The day had started good, and was staying good.
Then it began.
I was in the bathroom, post-naked-mirror-tick-check, when I felt something on my thigh. I looked down. It was a tick. Nay, it was a RUDE tick. A Very Rude Tick. The rudest tick I had ever met (to date), crawling and wiggling around like it had been invited onto my body.
I picked it up and drowned it, feeling a curious combination of gleeful revenge, guilt, and the sense of having just averted a near-disaster.
Then, I gave my hair an aggressive shake (having no sense of where else the tick could have come from) and continued my evening in peace.
At least, that was the plan.
Over the next 18-ish hours, I found no fewer than 11 ticks on my body (and this includes a shower at around hour 6 post-tour).
Victoria said she had never seen anything like it.
She is in her garden every day, and rarely finds ticks on herself, or on her dog.
I guess I’m just lucky.
Or tasty.
…Fragrant?
On the other hand, Victoria was eaten alive by mosquitoes, and they barely gave a shit that I was there, present, and ripe for blood-sucking. I read that some people have blood that appeals more strongly to mosquitoes, while others don’t. Maybe it’s the same with ticks.
(As if I needed another reason to appreciate nature from a distance.)
…Maybe it comes from growing up in the middle of a big city, but being surrounded by nature often makes me feel like I’m far from home, help, and emergency services.
Living out in the East Coast where nature and city are a short drive away from each other is a brand-new experience for me, and I’m loving it. It feels like a choose-your-own-adventure-book, and is a far-cry from having to drive for 50 minutes from one concrete street to another concrete street 8 miles away (that’s not an exaggeration, by the way; that happened), or having to spend several hours in traffic, with snacks and water at the ready, and your eyes peeled open for accessible bathrooms in order to reach some beautiful display of the natural world, all while dreading the long drive home in the back of your mind.
But my sister’s house feels like a wonderful combination of both: close to things that she loves, with a green, wild world in her backyard.
Here are some of the photographs I took while on that walk. Not pictured are the 11 ticks that decided I was the sexiest thing they had smelled since a deer crashed their annual “Bloodsuckers Anonymous” conference three weeks prior (I assume).
And here’s where you can find my sister and her beautiful art!
https://www.victoriasager.com/
https://www.instagram.com/vsagerart/