Reflections on the Gulf
Visiting Florida during complicated times...
My dad’s parents retired to Naples, Florida, when I was little. Although they’ve long since passed, my parents chose to follow them about 25 years ago and settled just a bit north of Naples in Bonita Springs. That means I’ve been visiting southern Florida on a semi-regular basis for most of my life.
It’s changed a lot. There are more condos and fewer alligators. More golf courses and fewer open spaces. And instead of being the kid headed down to see my grandparents, I’m bringing my own kids—including my recently university-bound son—down to see their grandmother and celebrate her 80th birthday.
When we arrived late last week, I immediately recognized the feel of the humid air, the swish of the palm fronds in the hefty December breeze, the taste of that first sun-ripened tomato. Mom showed up on my doorstep with my favorite tangelos, some of those much-coveted tomatoes, and strawberries from the farmer’s market up the road. Our landlord left a key lime pie for us in the fridge.
These markers that have come to represent Florida in my mind only came into sharper focus when I went out for a walk our first morning. Air plants clinging to the palm trees. Giant sun-bleached conch shells in the graveled flower beds. Mexican petunia and hibiscus and impatiens nodding in the breeze as we strolled by.
We walked by one of many man-made lakes and a flock of birds surprised us. Not just because they startled into flight as we turned the corner, but because they were a type of bird I couldn’t immediately identify.
You see, a lot of those early trips to southern Florida included lessons on flora and fauna from my otherwise stern grandfather. How to tell the difference between a snowy egret and a cattle egret (the color of the legs!). How to tell a conch from a whelk from a cone snail shell. How to find the tiny coquina clams that dot the Gulf shore and watch them dig themselves into the sand before the tide can wash them out to sea.
My grandmother made oodles of strange and whimsical creatures from those shells we collected. You can still buy similar creations from Tin City and the other kitschy gift shops up and down this coast.
My brother and I each used to fill a Planters Cheez Balls container with shells to take back north at the end of each week at the beach, inevitably bringing one back that wasn’t quite empty, discovered weeks later by the awful stench.
Like those treasured shells, I’ve collected memories of Florida all my life. And yet, it was hard to book this trip. I couldn’t stomach missing my mom’s 80th birthday, but it wasn’t much easier to stomach spending money in a state that doesn’t want my child to have the life-affirming medical care they need and deserve—that all queer kids deserve. It was hard to stomach visiting a place where a vocal and hateful minority seem hell-bent on taking books out of the hands of kids that need them because of some misguided attempt at control-disguised-as-care.
But here I am in Florida with only my prolific pen and a suitcase full of LGBTQ+ affirming t-shirts purchased on Etsy to help me through my uneasy feelings, through my guilt that I have a lifetime of happy memories in this place that doesn’t love my family nearly as much as I love it. It’s going to take more than a newly discovered Glossy Ibis to settle my restless heart, though as always, I don’t believe seeing them was any sort of random coincidence. Instead, I see it as a reminder that I still have something to learn from this place. And perhaps it even has something to learn from me.
Yesterday afternoon, as I pondered these birds and what they might mean from my spot in the sunshine on our lanai, I glanced up at the bright blue sky and a cluster of vines that seem determined to take over the power-lines behind our house. A family of woodpeckers have made their nest there at the very top, facilitated, I’m sure, by the protection of those vines. They’re making a life there, where before there was nothing but harsh man-made angles.
It reminded me of the resiliency of living things, of their ability to reclaim their habitat, to survive despite the obstacles mankind throws in their path. And I imagined us all, word by word, tendril by tendril, voice by voice, enveloping this place (Florida, our country, this planet) in twining vines that are the opposite of isolation, judgement, control, fear. I imagined us making a softer landing place for those who need it. And for a while, at least, I felt peace in my decision to come back to this place despite its challenges.
I never asked my grandfather what he thought about these bigger existential questions. I’m pretty sure he’d disagree with a lot of the things I believe in, as much of that side of the family does. In that respect, I’m glad we were too busy scooping handfuls of sand to watch those tiny coquinas wiggle their way ever downward toward safety in a precarious world. I’m thankful for the things he was able to teach me. And I think he’d be happy that I’m still down here poking in the sand, identifying birds, and searching for magic amongst the tides.
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