Rainy Days and Sundays
It's a rainy Sunday in Florida, cool and drizzly, kind of perfect for a holiday season in the South. When I lived up north in the frozen tundra where overcast would frequently be the color of the sky for a week or so at a time, I dreaded weather like this and longed for sunshine. Unless I was skiing and didn't want the glare from the slopes burning my eyes out but that's a different issue.
We recently made the decision to sell our house and head back up north, albeit a different state and region. My wife had always told me that she wanted to raise kids in a small town where there were four distinct seasons, one of them with snow. Being a confirmed though transplanted Floridian, I told her she was nuts and that as soon as she buried me (down here in the sand), she should feel free to move anywhere she wanted. So when I called her at work one day and told her, "Let's move to the mountains," she was shocked. In a way I am, too, but to coin a phrase, if not now, when? Once we buy another house we should be settled there for a period of years and the kids will be a lot closer to being not kids.
I've been wondering recently what the mix of things are that went into this decision. After all, I NEVER thought we'd sell this house for any reason at any time. While my wife's stated desires are an enormous factor, another is that the magic is gone for me in Florida. Perhaps one day it could come back, but now the ever increasing rush of traffic, the constant razing of wildland and building of crammed subdivisions and golf courses, the shoehorning of new houses in between two existing ones where there had been a medium sized yard, and on and on, have taken there toll.
The weather is still beautiful, and the humidity and the feel of the air, the damp warmth of the night, the stillness of the palm fronds in the quiet air (hurricanes excepting), all serve as a bittersweet reminder of that magic now faded. On a beautiful day you can look up and admire the openness of the faded blue sky that comes from living at sea level elevation, the greenness of the grass and the trees, and the diversity of the birds: blue herons, American egrets, quaker parrakeets with their discordant cries.
Then you look down and see the powerlines that are supposed to be buried but not, telephone poles across the streets from these, the crammed housing and incredible traffic; at night the mercury lights, brighter than streetlights, so bright you can't look at them for the glare, burn holes into the atmosphere that were never there before.
Here and there are signs of hope, but it probably won't be enough. To me, "developer" has always been a dirty word. Tear down the old, the damaged, the ugly, and rebuild there when you can. Leave the rest of it alone. Two thirds of the state are entirely dependent on rainfall for fresh water needs and there hasn't been enough for years. Now we have desalinization plants in Tampa and we don't know what the effects of dumping massive amounts of concentrated saltwater will be.
Grouper fishermen fight the periodic bans the government places on the diminishing fish, trying to protect their livelihoods. But aren't those going to be gone when the fish disappear? Shouldn't you support the bans and maybe eliminate a few fishermen? Restaurant owners, too, don't like the bans, they say people don't want frozen grouper from Mexico. But then won't they just order something else? It's not like the joint down the street has the fresh local stuff. People are still going to eat.
Anyway, it's a mess and it's worn me down. Part of it I'm sure has to do with my physical condition, which isn't good. I have bulging and herniated discs in both my neck and low back, and after a botched procedure that left me bedridden with leaking spinal fluid for eight months I'm now fighting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I've been close to an invalid for over two years now and in the struggle to remain above the negativity, I've grown tired of many things, not just the deterioration of the state.
I told Melissa that if I were healthy, if we could still take our boat out, and paddle the kayak or the canoe around the island we live on (and play softball and basketball and on and on), I might feel differently about leaving here. I don't know. But like today, I'm drawn to the idea of rain, snow and overcast weather; I want the weight of it. The truth is that I can lay propped up in my room in any house in any state but I want something more.
In Jeremy Poolman's book about his quest to know the last days of Libbie Custer (General George's widow), he quotes her as saying, "A wounded thing must hide." And that's me, that's how I feel exactly. When the sun comes out again it will appear with regret, and I will feel a vague sense of loss, and I will be sad.
We recently made the decision to sell our house and head back up north, albeit a different state and region. My wife had always told me that she wanted to raise kids in a small town where there were four distinct seasons, one of them with snow. Being a confirmed though transplanted Floridian, I told her she was nuts and that as soon as she buried me (down here in the sand), she should feel free to move anywhere she wanted. So when I called her at work one day and told her, "Let's move to the mountains," she was shocked. In a way I am, too, but to coin a phrase, if not now, when? Once we buy another house we should be settled there for a period of years and the kids will be a lot closer to being not kids.
I've been wondering recently what the mix of things are that went into this decision. After all, I NEVER thought we'd sell this house for any reason at any time. While my wife's stated desires are an enormous factor, another is that the magic is gone for me in Florida. Perhaps one day it could come back, but now the ever increasing rush of traffic, the constant razing of wildland and building of crammed subdivisions and golf courses, the shoehorning of new houses in between two existing ones where there had been a medium sized yard, and on and on, have taken there toll.
The weather is still beautiful, and the humidity and the feel of the air, the damp warmth of the night, the stillness of the palm fronds in the quiet air (hurricanes excepting), all serve as a bittersweet reminder of that magic now faded. On a beautiful day you can look up and admire the openness of the faded blue sky that comes from living at sea level elevation, the greenness of the grass and the trees, and the diversity of the birds: blue herons, American egrets, quaker parrakeets with their discordant cries.
Then you look down and see the powerlines that are supposed to be buried but not, telephone poles across the streets from these, the crammed housing and incredible traffic; at night the mercury lights, brighter than streetlights, so bright you can't look at them for the glare, burn holes into the atmosphere that were never there before.
Here and there are signs of hope, but it probably won't be enough. To me, "developer" has always been a dirty word. Tear down the old, the damaged, the ugly, and rebuild there when you can. Leave the rest of it alone. Two thirds of the state are entirely dependent on rainfall for fresh water needs and there hasn't been enough for years. Now we have desalinization plants in Tampa and we don't know what the effects of dumping massive amounts of concentrated saltwater will be.
Grouper fishermen fight the periodic bans the government places on the diminishing fish, trying to protect their livelihoods. But aren't those going to be gone when the fish disappear? Shouldn't you support the bans and maybe eliminate a few fishermen? Restaurant owners, too, don't like the bans, they say people don't want frozen grouper from Mexico. But then won't they just order something else? It's not like the joint down the street has the fresh local stuff. People are still going to eat.
Anyway, it's a mess and it's worn me down. Part of it I'm sure has to do with my physical condition, which isn't good. I have bulging and herniated discs in both my neck and low back, and after a botched procedure that left me bedridden with leaking spinal fluid for eight months I'm now fighting Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I've been close to an invalid for over two years now and in the struggle to remain above the negativity, I've grown tired of many things, not just the deterioration of the state.
I told Melissa that if I were healthy, if we could still take our boat out, and paddle the kayak or the canoe around the island we live on (and play softball and basketball and on and on), I might feel differently about leaving here. I don't know. But like today, I'm drawn to the idea of rain, snow and overcast weather; I want the weight of it. The truth is that I can lay propped up in my room in any house in any state but I want something more.
In Jeremy Poolman's book about his quest to know the last days of Libbie Custer (General George's widow), he quotes her as saying, "A wounded thing must hide." And that's me, that's how I feel exactly. When the sun comes out again it will appear with regret, and I will feel a vague sense of loss, and I will be sad.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 1:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home