Mosquito Musings
Collaging, Haiku and Peppermint Oil
I have a confession, dear readers.
Mosquitoes, or "lamok" in Tagalog, are testing my patience at home. They gravitate toward me, feasting on my skin. What truly irritates me is the irresistible urge not to scratch. I have red, swollen bites on my neck, left wrist, between my toes, left heel, and on both arms and legs. The itching sensation varies in intensity, but fortunately, they don't bite simultaneously.
I often wonder whether body temperature has something to do with it. (I tend to be on the warmer spectrum). So, I did a quick internet search and found this:
At the beginning of the 20th century, Frank Milburn Howlett, a British scientist serving in India, noticed mosquitoes were always hovering around his teapot at tea-time. As an experiment, he filled a loose gauze bag with the insects and placed it near a test tube filled with hot water.
When warmth from the tube reached the animals, “the effect was most interesting,” he wrote in a 1910 research paper. The mosquitoes were drawn to the side of the bag closest to the rising hot air.
Howlett also observed that mosquitoes didn’t seem to attack cold-blooded animals, suggesting that it was body heat that drew them to humans.
—Paul Garrity, How Mosquitoes find Humans to Bite, Brandeis Now.
Yesterday, I was in a sour mood about the mosquito bites and aired my woes to Tina. She suggested I use the diffuser with peppermint oil as a mosquito repellant. Thank God for her levelheadedness! I was too preoccupied with venting my annoyance to consider this straightforward solution. She found it quite amusing; mosquitoes were the last thing she expected to rattle me.
My sister Malyn even gave me an effective oil to soothe the inflammation during our last trip to Manila but I forgot to bring it with me on this trip.
After we finished chatting over FaceTime, I moved the diffuser to the nightstand, filled it with water and added several drops of peppermint oil. There were no new bites from last night; it seemed to be effective.
To keep me sane, I leaned into art and created two collages: One, to alleviate my frustration.The other, an attempt to find the zen from the whole situation.
For added measure, I even wrote a haiku:
Red swollen circles
Legs, thighs, arms, heel, neck, ears, wrist
So tempting to scratch
Creating the collages, writing the haiku and this post temporarily took my mind off the itching sensations and from the sight of the red swollen bumps on my skin. I feel much better but I know it won’t last long. Sigh!
Let me ask you, dear readers, how do you deal with mosquitos if you have them in your area? Any tips and/or natural remedies you can pass on to me that you found effective?
Such a great post, Stella - thank you! I am plat du jour for any passing mosquito - apparently, I'm delicious! I am a little ridiculous in that I do nothing about the bites - or to deter the creatures themselves from landing on me - because I can't stand the feel of anything (spray, cream, oil etc) on my skin. The day will surely come when I resort to a suit of armour!
My friend Mary B posted such a lovely painting of a mozzie just yesterday - do have a look - https://thrivinnotdrivin.substack.com/p/october-20-2023
Bless your heart! I'm sure you will get so many good suggestions here, and hope they work for you :) I keep a spray bottle handy with the following mixture: 8 oz distilled witch hazel, 30 drops of a 50/50 peppermint/eucalyptus essential oil blend. It soothes on contact, and is also a mild deterrent. It's not long-lasting though, and so won't be an overnight repellent. Mosquitoes are also very weak fliers, so a fan can be very effective. They are drawn to both CO2 and heat. I once read a fascinating account about a tropical village in which the eldest member had built his thatch home on stilts, with openings at the top of the wall. He had almost no mosquitoes because his heat and CO2 would rise and draw the mosquitoes right up and out the openings! I hope you will find relief soon!