All About the Weather

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Not your typical South Florida day. Chilly. Very windy. A lot like the first days of our travel down in the Scamp last year. Where we camped, up in the “Big Bend”, near the waters of the Gulf it was very cool and breezy and I wore blue jeans and a fleece and a hat all the time. The first morning I went into the water for a swim it was on a dare made by Kim Walker Stanberry. As proof of my daring Elisabeth snapped my photo standing on the cold wet, white sand dressed only in my bathing suit. I was posed a-la Charles Atlas, pumping my deltoid muscles, unshaven and slyly smiling. Looking at it later I realized that I had been channeling my hero, Jack Beers (for more on the ageless Jack Beers look here). My old-aged-flesh barely responding to my muscle’s urging, I look old and saggy, but proud and mischievous. The next few frames were of me running down into the smooth, clear water until I finally disappeared into the depths, my arms flapping like the wings of a brown pelican as I splashed down. It was cold.



But cold is a relative thing. Cold down here in the crook between the Loxahatchee river and the intercoastal waterway is 50 degrees accompanied by the smell of salt and mangroves on a stiff northwesterly breeze. Back up in Peekskill cold is a dry minus 2 pushing its way up the Hudson on a howling wind so loud that it eclipses the rumble of the mile-long freight trains chugging along the banks of the river. Cold is the chatter of your teeth waiting for the bus on Fifth and 42nd street at 6:45am. It is the cold plastic seat of an unheated car on the “J” train at midnight rumbling through Brooklyn. It is a motorcycle traveling against the wind on Route 17 (the “Quickway”) on Sunday morning-60 mph, all the clothing you can possibly wear, heated grips and still shivering like a wet hound...



I never like to talk about the weather when I call friends and family back “home”. It is the last topic of discussion they want to hear about. My father used to call me from his home in Miami and the first thing he would ask was “What’s the weather like up there?” Naturally, I would down play the actual state of my frozen environment-”Fine,” I’d say, “a little cool and some snow, but OK.” That was how I described minus 2 and 30 inches of drifting, wind-driven, white-out snow. He would gloat, “Oh, its about 75 here. The sun is very strong. I’m staying inside (watching John Wayne movies on AMC, no doubt!). I was watching the weather and saw they have some Winter weather advisories for New York...I was concerned that you were alright?” “We’re fine,” I’d say, “No problem.” Once he’d inflicted his damage I would spend the rest of the day vacillating between envy-dreaming of the warmth of the sand and a sun of a Florida beach- and hatred of my own rotten choice of where I’d chosen to live and my father-for bringing it all into focus for me on a weekly basis. So now, when I call friends up north I am careful never to be the one to bring up the weather. If asked I will give a bare-bones, unadorned statement of the temperature and nothing more. If pushed I will try to move the discussion to another subject. Further embellishment will only alienate my friends and family so I steer clear. I am weather adverse. I want to keep my friends.

Giving and Getting

Invited “Anne” over last night for a glass of wine and a movie. I can not tell you exactly why I did it. This is not a friendly place- Tequesta Hills Condominium”- and no one even expects a smile when passing in the street, let alone an invitation for the evening. But she and I had begun a dog-walking relationship over the past few weeks and I thought she might appreciate a little company. I went over to her apartment and she invited me in. She showed me her paintings and her drawings. They were very good. I could learn a lot from her. Her dog Ollie came over to me and let me pet him. She said that it was rare for him to be so trusting. ( I didn’t tell her I am the “Dog Man” and have a secret key that unlocks the hearts of all dogs!) I told her to come on by at about 7:30 and we would watch a movie from the library and have a glass of wine, etc... I told her to bring Ollie too. Gurler wouldn’t mind the company.



She came on time and we sat, she, Elisabeth and I in our place and I turned on the TV. Lizzy poured them some white wine while I que’d up the DVD. We talked a while and the DVD player went into sleep mode which meant it played a slide show of my photographs on the TV screen. Anne seemed interested in the pictures and we ended up talking about the photos for the better part of an hour. It was fun but I was self-conscious of being a bore and making her view and talk about our camper and our sons and our lives in general. I got over it when I realized she was genuinely interested.



We watched the movie (What the Deaf Man Heard-about a boy who is abandoned and who plays deaf for twenty years. Dickens-esque story that was sweet and innocent. Perfect for the evening ) and Lizzy made popcorn and tea. It was a strange coincidence that Anne has an adopted son who is deaf. She told us a little bit about him while we watched the film. Her insights about the handicap were heartfelt and informative. And then she said something that made me feel wonderful. She said “You two are so easy to be around...” I could tell she was enjoying the evening and the company and if she didn’t enjoy the family photos then she was a brilliant actress. How lovely our lives really seem when viewed through the eyes of another person. Elisabeth and I are so lucky and creative and happy. But we lose sight of our good fortune and it takes another perspective to see that sometimes. In the end what seemed like an act of kindness inviting a stranger into our home turned into a reaffirmation of ourselves. We got, from the evening, so much more than we gave, which, I guess is what friendship is all about.



Gurler and I walked Anne home after. The weather was starting to threaten and the coming rain was foreshadowed by the humidity that hung in the wind. The orange colored street lights lit our way. Gurler was happy to be out. We dropped Anne off by her gate and went home cutting across the lawn and the parking areas, just before the rain blew into Tequesta.