A parallel but separate plane perhaps as is the Florida of the arrivalists who see a clean slate for writing a new story in the old iconography of stucco and concrete and mink coats and champaign and Cadillacs and imported palm trees and grass lawns and condominiums and malls and money.
That shell shop has been here since the 30's and that restaurant -- see where the tourist cabins used to be when there was nothing but sand and pine scrub for miles along the Federal Highway that took you from Maine to Key West, mostly at 35 mph. That little grocery now cut off from the main road, the old, black woman smiling behind the counter who inherited it from her grandmother who ran the only store for miles back when segregation had a long future. That Thai restaurant used to be a fish camp long, long before the new bridge where people would come up from Palm Beach and from way up North to fish in the St lucie.
Nobody tries to grow pineapples out on Hutchinson Island any more, unless it's in the tailored garden of some big house. Most of it has gone back to the impenetrable wetland it used to be when there were bears here, and the Loxahatchee is still a wild and scenic river lined with cypress and oak and filled with alligators. It's still a good place to stop counting the days and to live them as you did when you thought they were endless. There's enough of it still here. Empty beaches still run for miles and miles and people still live in pink houses in charming towns where a cup of coffee is still called a cup of coffee and the restaurants aren't national brands and the fish isn't frozen and sometimes you have to put the engines in neutral to let the dolphins cross the channel and Miami Beach is still a hundred miles away.
White mangroves on Hutchinson Island
The Loxahatchee
Nothing but wilderness
Picturesque Stewart, by the St. Lucie estuary
Dolphin, riding my wake
The Blue Moon and her Captain
7 comments:
Personally, when I hear 'Florida' I think 'idiots,' 'the only state with its own FARK tag,' and '2000....'
Well, what you think is, of course, very important and who would argue with someone who "thinks stupid" and writes in a manner quite in accord with the meagerness of his mind?
i used to live in williston- about 25 miles from gainesville- i remember the spanish moss in the breeze and the crunch of the brown crackly leaves in fall and wild thunderstorms that would come out of nowhere- and running free barefoot in the sunshine. i don't care much for the touristy florida or the communities where all of the lawns and homes have to look the same. where i lived, most folks had a double or single wide trailer home and some had enclosed porches and most did not- but we all had the aluminum awnings (and i would swing around the poles until my mom caught me and told me that i would loosen them up and bring the whole thing down) apparently, the trailer and all is still standing. my dad lives there in the winter.
Very poetic. The real Florida brings out the poet in one, doesn't it?
You really know how to live. Makes me want to come for a visit. Is there room on the boat for 3 more? :-)
The dolphin in the wake is awesome...
I have no idea why they do that, but it followed us for miles.
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