Saturday: Boarded the Southwest plane in Columbus where everyone participated in the polite fiction (fact for some) that covid was over. Suffice it to say that if the person in the middle seat next to me has it, I now have it. And likely same true for any adjoining seats. Mask or no mask, sitting on a plane next to people for 4 hours (a promised 2.5 hour flight but oh well) is not ideal, especially when everyone within earshot is talking boisterously as if at crowded bar.
So we got the travel day done. The promised noon to 2:30pm flight didn’t work out as promised. The flight was delayed and then to make up for it we sat for over 40 minutes waiting for a gate at Fort Myers. (They said, “ten minutes” which I guess is sort of the default time period when you have no time period). So it ended up being a 12-4pm flight. We get to the rental car area and Budget, with whom I’d reserved a car from, had a line that looked like the one for the Racer roller coaster at Kings Island circa 1975. On a weekend. It snaked from the far end past about four other rental car lines sans social distancing. So it wasn’t a tough call. Got in a cab and cancelled my reservation. By 5pm we were bliss-bound.
Got checked in easily and then faced life without a car, so we rode our bikes to Jerry’s and had a delicious meal. Mimosa and steak dinner and Steph had shrimp. Picked up beer and milk afterward only it was now pitch-dark and Steph wasn’t thrilled about riding the 1.3 miles in the darkness. But we got it done using a iPhone as a headlight.
Do I detect a tinge of self-guilt over leaving the dogs to the tender mercies of the kennel this week? Far from their comforting routines and rich supply of treats? Perhaps a wee bit... they are creatures of habit and the habit is gone.
Sunday: Gape-jawed at the full moon studding the horizon last night, framed by palm trees and the lit blue pool of the complex. Somehow it feels like in January the warmth and sun is unearned or not quite as appreciated. By late February I’m desperate for Floridation. I keep waiting for the right moment to say to Steph, “we should live down here.” The example of relatives land friends who have done so nags. The advantage of buying is that then you can live here without guilt, like how you can eat as much as you want at an all you can eat buffet versus an ala carte menu. Going down for the month of February is easy to say but going to be really hard to do repeatedly given the mental barrier of the serial expenses.
But the time isn’t right. She didn’t see the bike jaunt from Jerry’s last night as an adventure but more as a fail, blinded as she was by the oncoming car lights of busy San-Cap road. Then of course the frustration over familial concerns, self-inflicted. We tune into the eldercare station almost as often as he uses his pulse oximeter monitor.
This first vacation morning when I wake up realizing I don’t have to serve the dog’s breakfast or do do work brings to mind the old time lyrics, “He flies through the air with the greatest of ease / a daring young man on the flying Trapeze.”
Interesting homily at St. Isabela's where the priest mentioned a novel idea as to why Elijah and Moses were with Jesus at the Transfiguration. Perhaps to illustrate the contrast: both had easy deaths - in the case of Elijah no death at all but a chariot ride to Heaven. Moses fell asleep in the Lord while still in full vigor at an advanced age. So it was a way of saying that that time has passed. Jesus’s death was anything but easy.
So short stroll in the morning coupled with a cigar. Vacations always start “in the hole” and this one no less given the travel hassle and car rental problems. So an easy Sunday slated. Watching the waves and figuring I spent about 50 cents per wave to experience them, ha.
Random thoughts: our idea of profound humor as kids was saying “whale on the beach!” upon seeing an obese person. Thought 2: I love the Gulf. Four feet from surf and tide hasn’t moved an inch! Thought 3: George W Bush as progenitor of Trump, for he taught America that skull and boners commit frequent boners (like fighting the wrong enemy over non-existent weapon stashes) so may as well just go with amateurs.
Took $10 flat rate taxi (Island Taxi) to George and Wendy’s restaurant and had a heavenly lunch/dinner there. Beers and split a margarita. Rack of ribs and salad. Yum. Beautiful summer weather. Hungry and thirsty and there’s nothing like a cold beer on a hot day.
Ordered groceries from Bailey's online! So feels like we stole a day down here.
____
Ouch...this from Russian writer Solzhenitsyn has the ring of truthiness about it:
Long periods of wellbeing and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. Difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul.
Not good vacation reading.
Monday:
Another stellar morning in the Floridian paradise. Fort Myers consciously refers to itself as paradise while Hilton Head makes no such bold claims. (Presumably because Hilton Head is no paradise during the winter months. )
Morning songs came to mind: Morning Has Broken and Three Dog Nights' Joy to the World (for the line, presumably, “joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea”).
We sauntered the beach in the morn; it’s warm already. Steph might say “hot”. 77 degrees feels hot given our sharply chilled February. High of 79.
I appreciate not having to plan the Normandy invasion to go outside as at home: like sweatshirt, followed by hooded sweatshirt, coat, hat, gloves, sling for coffee thermos, then.... leash the dogs and go!
I hold forth on my patio/Florida room, feeling the pronoun despite the trip’s brevity. I misunderestimate how much I enjoy eating out, at least eating out on a patio with a drink. The little things add up, like not having to pick up dishes and bag up trash. Just eating outside in summer weather is part of the appeal. George & Wendy’s Diner is perfectly in our wheelhouse. Also nice to see competence in the form of waitstaff and cooks. Pros.
Reading the Florida novel Shadow Country and some Melville for old times’ sake. Our goals: drinks & shuffleboard, maybe a bike ride if we’re incredibly ambitious.
Meanwhile, belated 12:45pm arrival to that point twenty-some miles shy of the horizon. The exquisite pre-2pm sun, the viaticum of guten morgen light. Oh grace-shimmer of water on shore! Waves seeking their sand-bound home, endlessly lapping. A thousand constellations within eye’s reach.
Moby Dick:
Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe!
Tuesday: Enjoyed a morning respite along the banks of the pond on the quiet back property. Saw a duck with a bright-red head and an iguana the size of a small gator -- which is what we initially mistook it for. (Funny to see a “no swimming” legend on sign outside a black water gator pond. As if! You really shouldn’t have to say it...)
Then biked to Bailey’s store and afterward to our old friend Island Inn, a hotel so historic there’s a road named after it. A nice shelled beach, so we stayed and while Steph did the “Sanibel stoop” and I sat mesmerized by the narcotic of ocean waves. An old BeeGees song came to mind: “Too Much Heaven”.
I go into the little wing next to restaurant with bookshelves that I thought of as a sweet sunroom. Smaller than I remembered it. (Lo and behold it faces due south according to my iPhone compass.)
We were then busted by Island Inn worker who told Steph this was private property. Former residents we were, but no alumni pass for us, boo.
We biked right smack dab into a “summer afternoon”, or so it felt, the heat generous but not overbearing. Rode past myriads of flowered hedges, shrub plants and scrub trees, and I wondered idly how different these were from the flora of Hilton Head. The dark water holes where gators might lurk were certainly familiar.
The lull-sea. Soothe and booze. Fish guts for shore birds. The pointillistic sun glued to the water like glitter. Romcom couples striding. Paperbacks by the seashore. A gentle day of sea camp and beach walk and a 5 mile bike ride under “July” skies.
Someone on beach was reading, “The Last Pirate”. Which lead me to check amazon site which leads me to read a sample of a different but similarly titled book: “The Last Pirate of New York”. (It had me at “pirate” and clinched it with “New York”. ) Also download a sample of Gringos, a novel about an ex-pat in Mexico as mentioned by Amy Welborn in her blog. An ex-pat in Mexico, ahhh. Also some of Dave Barry’s funny book on Florida. Keep Florida weird I say.
___
Thinking of an in-law's plight, it’s perhaps a poor analogy but I sometimes think of prayer of petition in “hopeless” cases similar to acquiring a lottery ticket. The ticket may not be a “winner” but it is still a live ticket with a chance at winning. To not play the lottery is to have an infinitely smaller chance of winning (i.e. 0%).
Where the analogy fails is the lottery is random and impartial, while God is not random and is partial towards us. And even a losing prayer-lotto ticket is not a loser because the prayer is answered in a different way: Jesus did not receive a positive answer for the cup to pass him by but was answered in the form of angels coming to his side at Gethsemane to comfort him.
Wednesday: I hitched up the bike at 8am and rode on bike to St. Isabela Church for 8:30 mass.
Pelican soars overhead and seems unaware of the gift of flight and the envy humans feel. The story of us as well given we’re usually numb to our gifts.
___
Finished watching documentary “The Plot Against the President” free on Amazon Prime last night. Really well done and needful given most don’t realize how treasonous our intelligence services are. Nice to have extremely professional directing/photography/storytelling on the right side of the spectrum for once, although obviously this story is as bipartisan as it gets since an attack on the president is an attack on us all.
___
So we had a cloudy spell from 10:30-2pm, so I lit out for the territories to Gene’s Books Too and then across the street to Gene’s Books. The former carries a splendiferous supply of history, politics and Florida genre while the latter is a cornucopia of fiction. I like the layout and atmosphere of the first one but the second one is charming as well given the labyrinth of rooms and cottages. Yes they have a path to at least two other small houses also full of books (one devoted to world fiction and the other to American fiction). As you walk in and there are aisles labeled “British Mystery”. Who knew British mysteries were so popular? Such that American fiction is banished to a backwater cottage?
I was certainly amazed at the volumes of volumes. The two stores displayed avalanches of works such that I could’ve spent a whole day there, and it made me think how ridiculous another book about almost anything is given the redundancy.
I came out with a dollar novel (Cheap Ticket to Heaven by a Charlie Smith, yeah, right, made up name), Vagabonds - light historical read about Edison and Ford, and a quirky book by a nature writer called Finding Beauty in a Broken World. Have to support your local or non-local bookstore.
I pick up Smith’s book and come across a lovely passage that reminds me of my desire to get lost in a field of corn, ala Field of Dreams.
...the big yellow fields, soaring off like runways from across the street fascinated him: ornate smooth-topped grass you would probably run away into at least once if you were born in that town - fields children probably disappeared into, got lost in...running for you life you could vanish into wheat.
Smith is a poet in addition to novelist which is ideal, like how a great 880 meters runner has natural gifts in the marathon should he have the endurance. Always bet on the poet with endurance rather than the workman plodder.
___
I was impressed that Gene’s Books Too prominently displayed verboten conservative books right as you come in (Andy Ngo and Candace Owens) despite flying a gay flag out front. The things you'll do to make a living, right?
So about ten miles of biking today and a mile jog along the beach at 3:30pm when I landed for the first time all day there. And the sun is back, Jack.
But wind and chill kill the ambiance around 4 but we stick it out for an hour before exchanging it for the windless sun-pool. Ahhhh. Now I’m in the civilized glade riding the perishable sun down to its 6:30 denouement. There’s something to be said for the tranquility of the Florida sun cast on the paver pool deck, beer resting comfy and stable at my side, passersby at a minimum, and water still as a pane of glass. Nice contrast with the unruly sea scene where wind whips, sand heaps, people walk by in an endless parade, and the water crashes. Quieter and warmer, we make it till just shy of 6, so a 3-hour outdoorsy window.
Thursday:
Restful cloudy morning; up by 6:15 and napping by 7. Read a lot of Andy Ngo’s explications on antifa in Unmasked. By 8 finally up for good.
Then we wandered like clouds to the fishin’ hole, fishin’ for gators that is. And we were rewarded with two little fellers on the far bank, sunning themselves and immobile as inanimate objects.
Then off to pool when the sun came out and enjoyed some recess there. Ah, this is the life. The odd thing is I can take time off at work and feel less “busy” than here. Between beach, biking, pool, pond, shuffleboard, drinking, etc... it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
I’m dinner-less tonight and tomorrow due to my lack of foresight on buying chicken and, for Friday, shrimp. Will have to Jerry’s it at some point today I guess. (Later: Uber Eats to the rescue! Ordered from Bayside Grill in Fort Myers).
We did a nice long 1.5 mile beach stroll looking for pretty shells. Felt the water on my ankles and the obliging sand under foot.
Best title of a 17th century book: “A Just and Seasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders, Written by a Grave and Learned Papist” by Jacques Boileau.
Jacques would have a lot reprehensions here.
Derek Walcott excerpts:
"Five years ago even poverty seemed sweet, So azure and indifferent was this air, So murmurous of oblivion the sea, That any human action seemed a waste...
“the wounds that make you think.”
"Heaven remains Where it is, in the hearts of these people, In the womb of their church, though the rain’s Shroud is drawn across its steeple. You are less than they are, for your truth Consists of a general passion, a personal need..."
Ah what a vacation I’ll remember fondly. The maze-like Harry Potter halls of the Gene’s Books, the espirit de corps lunch at George & Wendy’s, the non-tidal water edging, the beach walks into the happy-go-lucky sun, the quietude of the pool deck, Mass at St. Isabela’s, the sprint-run on Thursday, the visit to the genteel Island Inn, the new, fresh reads....
Friday:
March here is great. January here is a bit cold. The difference of five weeks seems pretty clear. Or maybe not so much: from 57-73 low/high to 61-76 low/high. Funny the difference four degrees makes especially when wind factored in. A typical 11-14mph sea wind makes for a 5-7 degree drop so now it’s 51/67 versus 55/71. The sun adds a degree or two so probably feels closer to 53/69 versus 57/73, meaning overall average in January is 61 and in early March it’s 65. The latter is almost room temperature.
By 10am it’s warmed up mucho and is pool weather. A gluttonous sixth day in this paradise. Beautiful beach walk watching pelicans gobble fish-prey in shallow one foot water. Rare for me to see them so close to shoreline. They float and fly, win-win for them.
Nice variety of morning walks this week: two to the pond area, three on beach, and one bike ride to church. Showers all afternoon tomorrow so we getting out at perfect time.
____
After a lovely bike ride down the winding paths near the old cemetery (while dreams of buying a condo in Florida danced in my head), and after passing by Spanish-styled mansions of hues red or orange and by hibiscus bushes the size of trees tressing the properties, we played some shuffleboard. Where I lost two games to Steph decisively. A low moment in my athletic career such than I’m even questing my athlete status.
Then 3:00 is beach o’clock, a late call to the emerald waters and pluff sands, all of which will evaporate tomorrow morning - like Cinderella’s plight at midnight - and we will return to 35 degree reality, a climate colder than my refrigerator’s interior.
We take a last walk - like a prisoner’s last meal - and come back to find crows had got into my bag and scored some of our popcorn. So now we have crow salvia on the popcorn. And a noisy feathered neighbor who refuses to leave with the others, knowing good popcorn when he tastes it.
I read Cheap Ticket to Heaven beside the unfailing waters. There’s something to be said about a new read on vacation, not picking up something already partially read under the conditions of home and work. Cigar smoke pleasantly wafts from precincts unknown. The tallest tree within eyesight is “the pelican tree” where more than a dozen rest from the fishing labors.
A lovely white bird with a long neck, a species of egret likely, looked at me square on as if expecting something. Very unafraid. I brought him with a half dozen kernels of popcorn, promptly ignored. Two minutes later a seabird scooped them up. How that bird knew they were food from the heights I do not know.
And then time ran out. 6pm and the light was on the westward track to disappearance. Watched riveting Netflix limited series called “Murder Among the Mormons”.
Saturday ; Sudden-thrust home, bereft of a leisurely sun-cast morning and hop-a-long afternoon just when I was getting my sea legs, just when I was reintroducing myself to poetry and getting lost in the clouds...