Florida!!!
Adding layers to my understanding of this state we call home (and the novel I'm writing about it)
Recently two of our friends from England visited us here in Lake Mary. It is the second time we’ve seen them in Florida (they came back!) so they must like it. They tend to go to super interesting, off-the-beaten-path places: Titusville, Nokomis, Sanford. They saw our house before it was renovated at all, and now mid-pool and addition. It’s lovely to see them as the arc of time progresses. We are all greyer and more beautifully wrinkled each time they visit.
Despite people in our social feeds coming to Florida all the time (our state gets 135 million visitors a year), we haven’t had many people stop by our little abode north of Orlando. I can interpret this in many ways of course, but it is usually a case of someone’s dad lives in Vero Beach or they had to do the Disney thing or they’re just here for the weekend or how far are you from Rosemary beach? Oh, 6.5 hours, cool…
It feels primarily as if people don’t come to Florida willingly but for some mysterious obligation. Perhaps the spectacle calls to them. Maybe they do it to avoid any regrets of not bringing the kids at least once. Or they’re escaping winter; a few days in Florida beats six months of unbroken frigid air. The bar is pretty low.
Here’s what Taylor Swift has to say about it in her new song, “Florida!!!” with Florence + the Machine:
It’s “what happens when your life doesn’t fit, or your choices you’ve made catch up to you.”
Some lyrics:
this city reeks of driving myself crazy no one asks any questions here I need to forget, so take me to Florida I've got some regrets, I'll bury them in Florida Tell me I'm despicable, say it's unforgivable At least the dolls are beautiful, fuck me up, Florida What a crash, what a rush, fuck me up, Florida Love left me like this and I don't want to exist So take me to Florida
Florida-as-wastebasket or unnecessary appendage is familiar territory. So familiar it’s trite, really (no shade to Taylor, but it is). I grew up in Central Florida joking with friends that we were the gangrene toe of America.
The Florida we live in feels very different to me now than what outsiders see. I’m glad I left for a time, not only because husband, kids, friends, experiences all happened outside—but because I grew to understand this place differently.
History is rich here, both natural and cultural. There are endlessly interesting stories of people who came to Florida to do or be something different than the norm. And then, there is the daily living: the new green tips on the Cypress in March. The wind off our lake. Big skies over strip mall creativity and entrepreneurialism, the film of dirt on my hands after thrifting. Grey sand, the call of a redheaded sand hill crane, the persistent temperature of our cold springs, the delicate ecosystem and rare animals. Optimists, everywhere.
I don’t love Ron DeSantis, Disney, I4, guns, or the awful environment for trans and gay people. But it scares me to love it as much as I actually do, and I wish I could communicate that better.
It’s hard not to compare our lives here with where we were living before in Ontario. We recently watched a movie with the girls, Slumberland. There is a great scene of a supposed Canadian dream archetype—a bearded man flying on the back of a Canadian goose in lumberjack plaid shouting, “Isn’t it wonderful, eh!” We laughed because we didn’t expect it, but there is a romanticized notion of Canadian people that is endearing and inoffensive. Whether true or not, Florida… doesn’t have that.
So in some ways, because of our values and what’s important to us, loving our home in Florida is harder than it was to love our home in Canada. It gets easier the longer we are here, though, the taller our trees grow, the deeper our friendships, and, honestly, the more visitors we have.
Having visitors who unabashedly love Florida (and not for all the wrong reasons), who return of their own accord, feels so noticeably refreshing. We’re grateful. There is more to the state than felons, corruption and tragedy. In fact the book I’m working on is a little bit about that. In it, a woman takes a roadside tour of some of my favorite places here, which perhaps encapsulates my own journey of learning to love it in Florida. Unabashedly.
I am excited to share that novel with you all (eventuallyyyy)!
In other news
“How is your writing going, Cassie?”
As research for my novel, I finished reading Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway, a Pulitzer-prize winning poet who wrote about the tragic murder of her mother along with what it was like growing up with mixed-race parents in Mississippi and then Atlanta. I felt really moved by it, and it helped especially with one particular thing I was trying to understand about a couple of my novel characters.
I’ve begun editing another of my short stories, a hopeful climate thing called “The Woman and the World.”
I also recently picked up the opportunity to write a chapter in a product design book about ‘managing up’. This should be good release for the product design knowledge still knocking around in my brain.
It’s okay that my creative writing isn’t flowing freely. Seems like that is true for many of my writer friends right now. For me I hope it resolves when our home environment is more settled and I have normalcy in my routine, or maybe when we go to England in a few weeks and get a break from it all.
What I feel I am learning is to trust the process and that so much “writing” happens outside and before the page.
Legit construction
Pool pavers are in and screen goes up Friday. We’re hoping to celebrate BB’s upcoming birthday poolside. On the Granny Annie Annex side of the house, the footers and block stem wall are up and filled with dirt (so long Staplehurst Hill and final remnants from the pool dig). Next up is plumbing (today), block walls and framing. Dumpster and Porta Potty have been delivered and we are looking like a legit construction site.
Casualties in the garden
I lost the lemon tree with the gnarled roots, and a sour orange transplant too. Yesterday we had our East Palatka Holly removed from the front of the house. It was a sad day, but the tree suffered and was dying rapidly of, I believe, witch’s broom. (An aside, here’s a fascinating NYT obituary of Dr. Sidney Waxman who studied the genetic components of witch’s broom). The large avocado we transplanted is surviving against all odds, and the lychee is showing its first new growth since I planted it 1.5 years ago. I credit the deep root watering bags we recently installed because dang was it a dry April.
Créme, Brûlée, and the bees
The chickens now have a temporary pen. It isn’t a permanent run and I don’t think they like it (it is just like me to worry about the mental health of our chickens). But something had to happen fast: our new neighbors planted a garden in their backyard and the chickens bee-lined for it. So for now they stay penned. Créme is still broody and Brûlée doesn’t know what to do with herself. I trawl Pinterest for DIY chicken entertainment devices. The bees are around and cranking away on their food and brood stores.
Pushup core
We are up to 18 pushups a day and my core is feeling much stronger. My brother enlisted my aunt, uncle, maybe mom?, and 98-year-old grandma to join the May challenge (some folks doing adapted versions, it counts!). There are 23ish people in my family taking part. Only Rudy could garner such enthusiasm for pushups.
Cats, cakes, and compost
Inspired by Moo’s creations, I sewed three little cat ornaments for Bb’s teacher’s birthday (Moo is taking plushy holiday orders, get yours in fast). I made this delightful strawberry chamomile cake recently, so good, you must try it. Lastly, I’ve been sweating away in the garden moving sago palms and asiatic jasmine, daydreaming about facilitating a compost workshop. Thinking about calling it “Dirt, Worms and Kitchen Scraps.” Would you be interested in that? Online or in person? Let me know!
‘Til next time. On, on,
cassie.
P.S. I couldn’t figure out where to put this bizarre linkage from the past two weeks, so it is here. My favorite Florida-based author, Lauren Groff, who wrote a book called Florida, shared her book in the hands of Florence Welch, which Florence shared after her “Florida!!!” song with Taylor was released. Then, one of my random Master Gardener friends, Murillo, (who I didn’t even know was a writer) shared his meeting with Lauren Groff in Orlando recently (so sad I missed it). Weird, eh?