Life in the Fast Lane in Northwest Florida

Okay, so life isn't so exciting this time of year in Northwest Florida for most people. We, always the walkers, tried our hand at bowling on January 16, 2010, at Avalon Bowling near Pensacola, Florida, since the weather wasn't so accommodating for walking outside. Kelly Kulick, on the other hand--well done, by the way--might have some fine pointers to help us walkers on the matter of bowling. When the weather's in the gutter, you gotta thank your mutter for takin' ya to the place that might just set the pace for life in the fast lane... Our son at one time was keen on making his mark in the auto body scene, which is definitely something Kelly Kulick might understand. Son's game plan has changed a bit since his mutter--and vater!--showed him how to stay outta the gutter.

Palm Rescue

"There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper, but
I cannot name the disease; and it is caught
Of you that yet are well."
--Camillo's veiled warning to Polixenes; William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, 1.2--

I truly believe that winter is not just a season for some people. It characterizes their entire "play" upon this "stage" of life. One bad thing after another creates a habit of bitterness, which builds a pattern of despair, which produces a crop of self-righteousness, which rages against anything that clings--or lays a claim, even if undeserved--to righteousness. I almost fell for the trap. The palms rescued me.

Yule Haul

Waiting

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,

Nor care for wind nor tide nor sea;

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,

For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays--

For what avails this eager pace?

I stand amid the eternal ways

And what is mine shall know my face.

You never know what waits for you at the end of a long journey from a far-away, frozen land. It could be a hammock on the patio in the sun and a friendly, familiar face...

...or two, or more.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me,
No wind can drive my bark astray
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years,
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up in fruit of tears.


You may find the annual rye you had sown a few weeks ago finally making an appearance on a drab winter lawn in Northwest Florida. You wonder if that guy at the agricultural check station could really believe someone claiming to be hauling home a few pots of his wife's herbs all the way from Illinois. You have discovered that honesty is still the best policy. And it never hurts to have a long line of trucks waiting behind you to dispel any doubt. The Loropetalum, among other things, lets you know that winter here is a lot more colorful now that you are home.

The waters know their own, and draw

The brook that springs in yonder height;

So flows the good with equal law

Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;

The tidal wave unto the sea;

Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,

Can keep my own away from me.

--"Waiting" by John Burroughs (1837-1921)--

One Foot in Front of the Other

When descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,

I know. It is almost time for the winter solstice, not the autumnal equinox. Hurricane season is over for 2008. Thank God for putting cycles in place for us. Otherwise, this roamin' idiot would not have been able to go kayaking with Hubby the day before the latest storm hit. No, I am not talking about any drastic change in the weather here in Florida. It has been quite peaceful lately, chilly maybe, but relatively quiet.

Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-0ff, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;--




Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.

Wednesday, we went kayaking on the northern reaches of the Escambia River. From my position in the bow of the boat (yes, those are my feet prominently featured above), I called my oldest brother to wish him Happy Birthday and let him know that I was going to be registering for graduate school classes at SIU. He was happy for me and encouraged me to follow my dreams. On Thursday when Hubby called the office in Illinois to see how things were going, his dream and mine suddenly turned into a nightmare and galloped away, leaving us in a bit of a shock. I am sure you have noticed the price of gasoline dropping steadily. Well, the same thing has been happening to the price of oil. Exploration has come to a screeching halt in the Land of Lincoln. The promises of yesterday have changed as quickly as the tide. It was extreme low tide on the river in the afternoon while we were out and about. You can see the grass moving with the current. We noticed things like sunken boats--leftovers from Ivan and Dennis in 2004 and 2005--and reconstructed bridges. Highway 90 soared high above us as we leisurely paddled the kayak back and forth along the river. Interstate 10 was completely severed by Ivan, and even this bridge required major work to get it back into shape and fit for travel again. I traveled its span quite frequently during 2006 and 2007 while attending the University of West Florida and finishing up my B.A. in English there. I stopped by the English department on Tuesday to say hi and ask permission to put up flyers. We were seeking a roommate for our daughter to offset some of the expense of owning a home here and renting one in Illinois. We had just moved into the house on Lake of Egypt the day after Halloween. Spooky, now that I think about it.



So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song:




From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;




Hubby had high hopes at this time last year. He has always been the optimist in this family and willing to take chances on promises. From his youth, he has been a very trusting person. After all, a promise is a promise, right? I guess bottom lines and plunging oil prices have a way of changing things like promises of employment status.

The shock is beginning to wear off, I guess. At least I am able to write somewhat comprehensibly today. I like the name of this boat we passed by on Wednesday, the day we went kayaking on the river and up the bayou, not using paddles to move ahead but our feet instead.

Do I see clouds in my coffee this morning? No. I like it black and strong, at least two cups of it.

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor

That forever

Wrestle with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,

Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate;--

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting

On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;

Till at length in books recorded,

They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.



--from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Seaweed"--

Making the First One Last

The Butterfly wished for a bride; and as may well be imagined, he wanted to select a very pretty one from among the flowers; therefore he threw a critical glance at all the flower-beds and found that every flower sat quietly and demurely on her stalk, just as a maiden ought to sit before she is engaged; but there were a great many of them, and the choice threatened to become wearisome...

We traveled some miles this past Friday to our home in Florida. Thankfully, the price of gas was cheap, and our Dodge truck--a leftover from the drilling business we used to own--did not set us back too many of those green objects worked so hard for and disappearing more quickly than we could have ever anticipated. When Hubby and I married nearly twenty-nine years ago, though, times were tough then too for us and a lot of other people our age. We were young when we married, the first ones among our friends to tie the knot, and we have made it last while some of our friends have not been so fortunate. As you can see by the gauges pictured above, Hubby was driving responsibly on the Interstate highway, not speeding, and we had a few more miles to go before needing to fill up the tank or empty anything else. Hubby remarked that the last half of the tank always seems to disappear more quickly than the first half. How can that be? If a half is really half, then each one should last the same amount of time as the other one. Hubby replied that most fuel gauges somehow lose their calibration or whatever it is that keeps them honest in the beginning.

...The spring went by, and the summer drew toward its close; it was autumn, but he was still undecided...


At our exit from I-65, we noticed a new casino almost ready to open for business. These are heady days for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and the town of Atmore, Alabama. According to one website I found, though, there are some officials at the state level who seek to block the Native Americans' quest to follow after the elusive American dream and make lots of that green stuff. I have to wonder why the Indians should not be allowed to claim their rights to the goodies, since they were the first ones here. They will, after all, be contributing to the dwindling tax base so greedily guarded and consumed by elected officials. There are not so many manufacturing jobs left to shore up that base anymore.

...And thus it happened that the Butterfly had no wife at all. He had been too long choosing, and that is a bad plan. So the Butterfly became what we call an old bachelor.

Saturday morning was devoted to unpacking a few things and taking a walk in the neighborhood. You can see the old reliable truck resting in our driveway not very far from the neighbors' maple tree, which was still looking colorful that day. After the brisk winds we have experienced the last couple of days, I do not expect to see too many of those colorful leaves left on the tree tomorrow morning. My little windmill palm seems out of place among these deciduous trees, but it just would not seem like Florida or home without it.

It also would not seem like home without this little guy coming to visit with his parents. Micah just cannot get enough of "guy" things like our lawn tractor. He insists on climbing up and pretending that he is in charge of lawn maintenance around here. If I had just half of his energy, maybe I could really get the lawn and gardens looking good. Our grass in Florida at this time of the year looks awful so Hubby seeded it with some annual rye. Maybe by the time we have to leave, we will have some kind of green stuff to admire here.

We had another turkey dinner on Sunday afternoon, believe it or not. This time, though, our son fired up his fryer in the barn behind our house, and we enjoyed the bird prepared in deep-fried fashion. It is surprisingly tasty and not at all greasy prepared this way.

Grandpa worked off a few calories pushing Micah around the back yard in another relic from our drilling days--the old workhorse wheelbarrow. It has carried more sacks of Quik-rete, Portland cement, and bentonite clay than we care to remember. I am glad it serves a more entertaining purpose these days.

It was late in autumn, with rain and cloudy weather. The wind blew cold over the backs of the old willow trees, so that they creaked again. It was no weather to be flying about in summer clothes, nor, indeed, was the Butterfly in the open air. He had got under shelter by chance, where there was fire in the stove and the heat of summer. He could live well enough, but he said, "It's not enough merely to live. One must have freedom, sunshine, and a little flower."

Our Peruvian lily and his beautiful mother love to watch Daddy cook. You can see our kayak behind them. We will be taking it back to Illinois in the truck along with a lot of other stuff I just cannot live without for a couple of years. I wish Micah and his parents and his aunt and a couple of kitties at home could join the stuff, but, unfortunately, these Beverly Hillbillies will be the only human objects traveling back to the Land of Lincoln. Somewhere in one of my comments on one of my posts, I remember telling someone that if wishes could move land masses, then Illinois would be on the Gulf Coast. Now that hurricane season is officially over for this year, I can say things like that without any fear of it coming true for a while.

And he flew against the window-frame and was seen and admired and then stuck upon a pin and placed in the box of curiosities; they could not do more for him.

Micah and I are fast becoming buddies. We both find humor in things we love--things like playing in the yard with Grandpa and working on getting our family back together again.

"Now I am perched on a stalk, like the flowers," said the Butterfly. "It certainly is not very pleasant. It must be something like being married, for one is stuck fast." And he consoled himself in some measure with the thought.

"That's very poor comfort," said the potted Plants in the room.

"But," thought the Butterfly, "one cannot well trust these potted Plants. They've had too much to do with mankind."

--from Hans Christian Andersen's short story "The Butterfly"--

Love Bugs--Hermione's Revenge?

I love to see this Loropetalum shrub which I have trained into a tree. It blooms practically all year just beyond our front porch here in Florida, where the weather is still rather warm right now and the love bugs are swarming...again.





[Aside] Too hot, too hot!


To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.


I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances;


But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment


May a free face put on, derive a liberty


From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,


And well become the agent; 't may, I grant;


But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,


As now they are, and making practised smiles,


As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere


The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment...

--from William Shakespeare's Winter's Tale--

Rose in Illinois recently asked me what a love bug is. Can words adequately describe this free-loving menace to southern living? I have found a few words here and there that just might satisfy your curiosity about the critters. They are seldom seen alone, and you almost feel sorry for the poor males. I said almost. Washing windows is not recommended during love bug season, but I had no choice if I wanted to get this autumn chore done before leaving Florida this weekend. If I get home for Christmas, I would like to see the sun shining brightly through my windows and the Loropetalum blooming just beyond them.

Mea Culpa--My Bad?

Mea culpa. The Lily Briscoe in me wants to know: What does it mean? I will be doing my part to add to global warming in a few days when I board a plane which will take me away from Florida and back to my beloved in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. I will leave a part of me here (besides what's now working its way through the septic system) like a time capsule waiting to be opened at the appropriate time.

Our daughter has many admirable qualities, not the least of which is her empathy for the unloved ones or misfits she meets in this world. She is now 26 years old and has maintained contact with one such boy she has known since high school in Kentucky. His name is Michael. Consider, for a moment the meaning of that name. He has a long, social-services history of being passed from one relative to "friend of the family" and from "friend" to state mental facility in the hopes that he might someday find a purpose in life and be able to make himself useful to society. His profound speech impediment makes it difficult to understand what he says. It is unlikely that he will ever find gainful employment or live a "normal" life as most of us would understand that term. Sarah has a connection with Michael--they met in a high school art class--and she is probably the only true friend he has left in this world. Not too many people would give him the time of day, let alone care what happens to him, given the kind of "life" he has lived and the things he has done--or not done, like earn a living, marry, or raise a family. She just found out last week that the home of the family he was living with burned down under mysterious circumstances. The lady who took him in was the niece of a man he lived with for several years, whose house also burned down. Michael's life reveals a puzzling pattern which will probably never be solved, no matter how many social workers or psychologists get involved in trying to solve it. Why? He does not communicate very well, and even if he did, his tale would surely implicate the social service system as an accessory to the many, varied abuses he has endured for most of his life.

Sarah is approaching a major crossroads in her life right now. She loves being a massage therapist, but, the economy being what it is right now, her business has slowed to a snail's pace. I convinced her to take a couple of classes this semester, one of them an introductory social work class. I thought that career would fit her personality like a glove. Now, I am not so sure. How would someone so empathetic manage to negotiate and survive the bureaucractic, money-hungry nightmare which has consumed so many misguided social agencies? They were once created to feed, house, and protect the hungry, homeless, and abused souls among us. What has happened to them? I have always taught her to respect and love the unlovable. Now I wonder if I have done the right thing, encouraging the sensitive, gentle aspects of her personality to overrun its natural instinct for self-preservation. How will she take care of herself if something happens to us?

She will probably not approve of my using this video or talking so candidly about her. I could pretend nothing is wrong, smile, talk of inane subjects, and leave calmly in a few days. After all, that is the usual course my life has followed for the last, almost five decades. Yeah, you could say the idea of mea culpa has been working its magic on me lately. My bad?

Heaven in The Symmetry

Do you see heaven in the symmetry of a spider's web? The spider I found inside the screen the other day found its way outside the screen and back on my blog today. Shameless orchard spider!

Today, after checking in with my new orchard specialist, I found a lot of fives around the garden and wondered about the significance of that particular number.

I found this site in my search, and it has a few interesting things to say on the subject.



I recently planted some Pentas in pots and in the flower beds to add some color and butterfly attraction to my world at the moment. For some reason, I have never grown these flowers before in my garden. I was curious about them so I did a bit of looking on the Web. I learned a few tips from another site I found.


Even the common Vinca, which self-sows freely in my garden, wants to count, by fives.


Mexican petunias are giving me something to smile about. They are filling in the bare spots where other, fussier plants have failed to perform. Other gardeners may not like them for what might be considered invasive behavior, but I give them free rein in my garden. I like their five-petaled flowers too. The hummingbirds like to pay them a visit and take a sip from their trumpet-like blossoms now and then.


We went bowling last night after supper, and Micah wanted to run about freely. Unfortunately for him, there are rules in place that do not allow that sort of behavior. He is so young, energetic, and curious about everything, he cannot help but defy those rules and orders to be obeyed and keeps us busy running after him. Luckily, there were five of us adults present to watch him and scoop him up when he just could not sit still any longer.

When I was searching on the Web for the significance of five, I came across some other nuggets of wisdom. One of the sites explores a book with which I am intimately familiar and what it has to say about the significance of numbers. Plato was another fellow who decided the number five was pretty special. He wondered a lot about divine subjects too.

Heaven by Five

Five fingers,

Five toes.

Form in the womb we see

Has all of those.

Five petals,

Five spheres.

Plato once thought of

Symmetry,

Beauty,

Truth,

Heaven....

No more tears.

--W2W, 2008--

Screening the Aliens Among Us

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise--you know!
How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell one's name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

--a poem by Emily Dickinson, c. 1861--

My daughter snapped the first picture you see yesterday evening right as the sun was setting. The mantis sitting outside the pool enclosure looks like he is saying his evening prayers. I went outside this morning to drink my coffee and meditate on things just as the sun was rising and found this toothy smile above me inside the pool screen. I had been wondering what sort of creature had been leaving its webs dangling down for me to get caught in. It looks deceptively friendly. If I was much smaller or it was much larger, it would probably love to have me come up for dinner sometime. I would at least like to be properly introduced and know its name. Does anyone know?

Fortunes of Poetry on the Water and the Trash Heap

If "it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," does it not follow that a married man in possession of a wife must be in want of a good fortune? He sure would find it helpful once the responsibilities begin to multiply and the bank balance reveals more evidence of subtraction than addition. Poor men! Well, at least some of them will get extra points for longsuffering. I know mine will.

These young people are more rich than they realize at the moment. I got richer by being able to spend the day with them this past Saturday. Boating and beach time took place on the "sound" side of Pensacola Beach. The water is much calmer there and therefore kid-and-boating-friendly.

While Grandma Martha watched Micah play on the beach, I was the lookout while my daughter-in-law took a wild ride on the tube. For some reason, Alan would not trust any of us women to drive the boat so he could take a turn on the water. I was a little hurt by his decision because I have a lot of experience behind the wheel of a power-boat. He probably remembers the times years ago, living on a lake in Illinois, when I tried to throw his father off balance. It was always done in a spirit of light-hearted fun, honestly!

My daughter-in-law proves that a good woman holds on even when things can get a bit choppy.

On Sunday morning, Sarah and I tackled the thorny problem presented by some Knockout roses. I love these shrubs for their resilience and beauty, but they tend to overstep their boundaries in this Florida climate. The plentiful rain and warmth we have had this summer at home apparently provided ideal growing conditions. I had to be ruthless and trim them severely. I usually perform this task late in the fall or early winter, but I only have a couple of more weeks until I go back to Illinois. I was also concerned that if Hurricane Ike paid us a visit, the shrubs would damage themselves and the screen enclosure by whipping about in the wind.

I know, it looks pitiful now, a veritable piece of destruction, but just give it a few weeks. It will be blooming again and as full as it was by next May, ready for trimming again. Maybe the canna lilies hidden behind its former mass will thank me with an abundance of flowers before I have to leave.

I can understand why Sarah leaves the rose bushes alone, even though she does a great job of maintaining the rest of the yard. Their thorns are fierce enough to penetrate the thickest gloves I have, and she has to be protective of her hands. She makes her living with them as a massage therapist.

We added a lot of stuff to the trash heap, or compost pile, if you prefer. We were rewarded for our hard work by what we found growing there. It was pure poetry.


Though I have grown cypress vine and morning glories before in my Midwest gardens, I have never grown them here in Florida, having found them to be a bit unruly once established. Somehow they managed to find their way to our trash heap, those little blessings on my mess. We usually burn the pile down a bit if it gets too big, but I think I will leave this mess alone for a while, at least until I come home the next time. It is trying so hard to cover up the evidence of my destruction.


"I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane--one does not often see anybody better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were."
"And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"
"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.
"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."
Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again...

--All quoted material borrowed from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice--

Nobody's Fault

I am back in Southern Illinois, but no one is to blame for the sudden change in my plan to finish massage school; it's nobody's fault. Hubby and I stopped at Ferne Clyffe on the way back from Florida. He said this split in the rock might be the result of a fault line in the area.

I quit the massage program because of the PITA I mentioned in an earlier post. The pain I began to experience just a couple of days after returning to Florida in late May began to interfere with my activities of daily living. Once I became seriously sleep deprived and had to take ibuprofen around-the-clock to keep the pain at a tolerable level, hubby insisted I see a doctor. The chiropractor I went to said I might have a herniated disk and wanted me to go to a medical doctor for more testing and possibly an MRI. Our insurance coverage in Illinois does not permit out-of-network referrals or expensive tests. So my only option, if I didn't want us to be bankrupted by exorbitant medical expenses, was to quit school and return to Illinois. I wonder if my spine is beginning to look like this juniper I planted in Florida a month ago?

Hubby came back to Florida last week to pick me up. He took Sarah and me out to dinner and for a nice long walk at the beach a couple of days before we had to leave for Illinois again. It's hard for me to lose the sand between my toes but even harder to leave my beautiful daughter in Florida. She is being brave and optimistic about the whole thing.

Early in the morning before we left, hubby and I took a walk in the neighborhood. This huge tree I am standing next to is a live oak, one of the biggest and oldest in the area. It owes a great deal of its strength and stature to the grove of oaks which thrive here. They have withstood and triumphed over many trials in their lifetimes.

Like Sarah, I am keeping a positive attitude about everything. I know I am blessed beyond measure with a loving and supportive family, friends, and neighbors. Nothing that comes my way can uproot the strong bond we have among us.

Beauty and Truth--Nature Never Lies

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep


A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.


Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits...

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

(John Keats--from A Thing of Beauty and Ode on a Grecian Urn)