I was accompanied by Fred Wurster, hydrologist with the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Suffolk, VA. It was early July and although there was a faint wind, once we entered the thick brush of the swamp, the biting flies began to attack us. Fred, being a kind person, lent me his bug coat and suffered at least three bites on his forehead, while I got one or two on my neck(the bugs are a determined lot).
This was my second visit into the recesses of the swamp since my first in January 2017. It was important that I immersed myself there in the cold season as well as the summer.
This practice of embodiment within the landscape is essential to my writing process on enslaved flight in the swamp.
July 2017 in the Great Dismal Swamp
Christy Hyman 