“I found a Lady’s Slipper,” Bob rushes into the house.  I’m groggy from my nap.  Saturday was our first day with outdoor dining service, and with reduced capacity and little traffic, just the two of us handled the dinner shift.  But I handled the 3 am baking shift, too.  That made it a 20-hour day for me, with 17 of those hours on my feet.   “I’ll take you to see it.  It’s just in the woods up the road.”

He’s eager for me to go back out with him.  

“Ticks,” I grouse, and look longingly back at the stairs, the pathway to my bed.  

“They’re beautiful.”  

I sigh and pull boots and socks over my bare feet.  We walk up the road, scanning the edge of the forest for a good entry point.

And I remember the years I was afraid to venture into the forest.

Everyone I knew was coming down with Lyme disease.  Or Anaplasmosis, or STARI.  I was petrified of getting a tick bite.  Petrified of my daughters getting tick bites.  Thankfully, we have miles and miles of dirt roads and trails here in West Fulton, so we found ample opportunities to be outdoors.  But those woods…those fields…

I have memories pushing freely through the hayfields when I was a child, finding the pink musk mallows, deep purple vetch and daisies amidst the Timothy.  I remember the grasses when they were taller than me, when I could lie down in the field and smell the warm sweetness as the tips of the seed heads seemed to brush against the fluffy clouds and June skies. I remember the pleasure of pushing through roadside weeds to a glade of flox, their clovey scent washing over me as I picked a bouquet. I remember slipping into the woods along the hedgerows, finding the stone walls, then feeling the cool breeze as it lifted off the streams that crisscrossed them.  

Lyme disease put a stop to all of that about fifteen years ago.  My feet knew gravel and mowed lawn, the bricks and hardwood boards of my household floors…But they forgot the sensation of cool moss, of lichens on rocks, of the soft layers of the forest floor, the pull of tall grass as it intertwined with my toes as I listened to the  intimate whispers of a sibilant hayfield.   These were among the sweet treasures of life that became treacherous.

Despite my precautions, I still got tick bites.  I still had brushes with Lyme disease.

But then, I lost my fear.

It wasn’t a switch of one day to the next, I suppose.  Perhaps it was more of a tipping point, a slow pining for what was lost to me, which grew to a fevered passion until the living room furniture seemed too confining, and the only place I could envision relaxing was deep in the forest, out on a ledge, or down along a stream bank.  If the ticks were going to find us even when we took every precaution, then I might as well learn more about this enemy and stop depriving myself of my loves.

I learned to scan my body for ticks, to plunge myself in a bathtub or a pond when coming out of a brushy area, to remind my kids to scan their bodies before going to sleep each night.  Bob and I each assigned a set of clothes as our “tick outfits.”  We ask for forgiveness from the eco-gods, then spray them down with permethrin a few times each season and don them each time we venture off the beaten path.  

Ticks and their diseases didn’t go away.  But I realized I was suffering from a different tick-borne illness by living my life in perpetual fear of them: nature deprivation.  

I think of this often lately, in part because we’re in tick season; but also because of Covid-19.  Weekly I’m talking to different friends and fellow business owners.  We’re all confronting massive anxieties about re-opening.  Cases are going down in New York State, even though they’re growing globally.  We mutually shoulder the burden for keeping those numbers where they ought to be.  And as business owners, we’re making those decisions for our staff and our customers.  Justin from Green Wolf, who brews the beer we serve in the cafe and runs the tap room down in Middleburgh, is fearful of having to enforce social distancing when people are consuming alcohol.  Anthony from Plows hares, our coffee roaster who has just re-opened one of his cafes on the Upper West Side, is confronting the ire of customers who are angry about having to order electronically over a phone, rather than just speaking their orders to staff.  Dave of the Mouzon House, who buys our meats for his farm-to-table restaurant up in Saratoga, has torn apart his kitchen and rebuilt his bar to create greater social distancing.  He and I debate whether paper plates and disposable cutlery are a necessary precaution. 

There is an interdependency between all of us.  I need Justin’s beer for our night business.  He needs his space back at the breakfast bar where he can drink Anthony’s coffee and regain equilibrium each week.  Dave says if he can’t serve Sap Bush meat, he’s turning his restaurant vegetarian.  Dave’s checks cash flow my business through winter, along with Anthony’s coffee beans.  Anthony needs meat and a place to come sit on a Saturday night to nurse a beer and wash away the strain of re-opening down in the city.  We are a tiny part of our regional economy, each of us needing the other to survive.  Each of us worries that this virus will flare out of control again, each of us scans the horizons and makes contingency plans for another shut-down.  Each of us vows to find ways to keep our customers, family members and staff safe.

Bob intertwines his fingers in mine and pulls me off the road and through the brush to cross into the forest.  Briefly, I imagine those fearsome ticks reaching from their perches, swinging like acrobats to catch a bit of my clothing, then scrambling through the folds and creases until they can root their way under my belt line.  

But the Lady’s Slipper is up ahead:  A hearty orchid, a rare sight, blooming upon the forest floor, waiting to be admired.  

And I know that the reward of the beauty is worth the calculated risk.  

And I know that my conversations with Anthony and Justin and David will continue.  We will argue over the best way forward.  We will push each other.  We will write our policies and train our staff and wear those masks and open our doors. 

Because for us, the rewards are there:  watching someone laugh over a beer; seeing family members share a meal; sliding love across a counter in a cup of coffee; igniting someone’s taste buds, witnessing the brightening of someone’s face as they meet up with an old friend or neighbor; creating delight; offering sanctuary; dazzling the senses; building community. 

This is why we do what we do.  This is why we will learn to channel our fear into education, our education into strategies, our strategies into daily practice.  And we will recover all those dazzling thrills that brought our minds and spirits to these businesses to begin with.

Bob and I wander the forest floor until we find the flower.  She’s stunning.  As our eyes grow accustomed to the change in light, we make a discovery.  There’s actually a little grove of them, pushing forward their bellies in pride, flaunting their beauty for us.  And I’m reminded once more of the great joy and delight that comes from pushing through fear.