| Dec. 11th, 2009 @ 05:34 pm Farewell Florida |
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Yesterday I was standing off the shore of Lake Erie watching the waves blow over the icicles. In the gray mist was Cleveland. My Orioles cap flew off into the lap of a hospital recovery lawn... I don't know what to call it. There were luxury apartments and condos along the beach. I had nothing to do with the hospital, but it does seem like a safe place to witness the ferocious majesty of the nearest Great Lake I've happened upon in a long while.
Such an intimidating twist on Florida's sunny coastline. I didn't want to touch the water. It meant death and I couldn't believe that people exist even further North. Windchill at 0. At least the sun poked through now and then. The horizon was boatless, choppy and gray like a storm. The water was a brown hue like a bizarro-world beach.
We were an 8 hour drive north of Cincinnati where my plants soak up the sunshine through bay windows after a successful smuggle from South Florida. Immediately Cuban anoles (lizards) and greenhouse frogs (Cuban as well) jumped out of my potted garden and began destroying the local ecosystem. It's amazing how they could survive for a week in the back seat of a car as we made our slow way up here. With the temperature dropping and the icey winds knocking the widowmakers around outside it feels good to watch a couple of lizards just enjoying a heat lamp on some old plants from home. Too bad I don't have any Florida soil in the 10 gallon morsel of home. Of course, Florida soil is useless.
Mangroves thrive on my kitchen counter. I'm spending so much time in pet stores these days that I had to buy a betta fish. He remains nameless as mostly all I've done these days is suffer. You know the suffering, great reader. That lingering, malaise known as life. Or daily living as some call it. As usual I'm quite active. Yet, somehow, amidst this terrible gift that we know not how to send back to its giver as though maybe a Santa Claus of Terror has delivered some message onto us and we are left with nowhere back to send it or even an address... we must believe it exists yet we know the smart kids don't believe in anything. Oh, the horror!
Well, I'm a day away from a year. Or let's just say Sunday is the day. And with it, or should I say today, I feel quite... well, I feel everything. And I have no happy rum to imbibe this year. I am homesick for sunshine and yet joyously embracing this new "brisk" lifestyle. I have made contact with writers here. Our format: 15 or so of us sit before a fireplace in a deliciously more comfortable bookstore than any I've ever known where we take turns reading from 930am! till noon on Mondays! and we help each other. The coffee shop does sell booze, but as far as I know everyone smells sober. No cigarettes. And rather than look out at an audience of emotionally disturbed bi-polars on a roller-coaster ride one sits at a table and everyone has a copy of one's writings. I told them that some of my stuff has been danced to and they said they would do that for me! Many of them have gray heads and seem official. One even has a novel at the front of the store for sale!
So much has changed. Temper off !'s
Jazz 7 days a week. Classic radio that really rocks. Parsley and Rosemary freshly growing in the kitchen window. Nabokov's final novel, rough, perverted, savory cerise and obliteration between my ears or over the astral phone line... henh, ET?
Well, so much for what's on my mind. Like Madonna I live my life moreso on my knees these days. At least when I'm happy I do.
Looks like Kentucky's "Unbridled Spirit" is calling to me in a valley not far from here. All my stories and everything I've ever wished for just coming true. Hands so dry though. I found my niche. I found a city that has a population that loves where it lives. The North and the South can battle it out over there. I'm in the midwest. Perhaps I've found that space Rumi talks about. The one beyond all knowledge of good and evil. A heartland for True Neutrals. |
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