In the Warmth of the Sun

Florida

The sun sets every evening and here

along the water it is always an event!

It stops people in their tracks,

causes cars to pull over,

people to line the shore.

It is a primitive and primordial rite, the setting of the sun.

We all pause, breathless and still

and wait as the sun touches the Gulf waters

and falls beneath the ripples of the horizon.

Up and down the beach,  I hear the collective

“Ooohhhh...”

We watch, breathless: two minutes and thirteen seconds,

attention riveted to the color and the flame

until the last of it is gone.

The air is a bit cooler and the clouds undershot with gray now.

Ensemble, we sigh, 

“Ahhhh...”

and begin to drift toward dinner, or home,

into and with one another for the evening.

It is the same sun and the same scene

that has commanded my attention so often.

I wrote this piece of poetry more than twenty years ago on my first trip to Florida.  Pam and I have just returned from a visit with Lee and Mare in the house they are renting in Ft. Myers.  One evening, the four of us drove out to Lover's Key to watch the sunset.  We were delighted to find people still hold the same reverence and fascination with this day's end event.

Once we are in the mountains, leaving is not something we do lightly.  This time however, Lee and Mare's generous invitation to come to Florida was too good to ignore.  Exchanging 20+ mph winds and frequent snow fall for warm sun and gulf breezes was, as we say, a good trade.

Our days in Florida were filled with sunshine, reading, and daily visits to the beach.  We were on the beach every morning to watch the big boat head out for Key West.  The wake creates a play land for dolphins who jump, dive, and surf on the waves.  Next we walked the beach for a while, photographing wading birds, pelicans, osprey and sometimes even, members of the constant morning people-parade.  Our second morning as I looked through the view finder on my camera, I was happy to find the smiling face of Lee's sister Elvon.  She and husband Don own a home in one of the many communities in Ft. Myers.  Returning from the beach, we often donned our swim suits, and plunked down on floaters in the pool as we read, napped, and relaxed the day away. 

We made several excursions to local places of interest:  the Farmer's Market (a good morning's bike ride), trips to Six Mile Slough, Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, and Lover's Key--both to kayak for several hours, and to honor the sunset.  In all of these places we saw and photographed a huge variety of animals, birds, snakes, and waterways.  

We had dinner with Don and Elvon several times--both at Lee and Mare's and at their place. Our last shared celebration was a delicious turkey dinner after Becca, Tommy, and (almost) a year old Fitz arrived at Don and Elvon's.  When dining at Lee and Mare's, we finished several evenings getting whipped playing a board game called Sequence.

It was good to see Becca and Tommy and Fitz.  Fitz was entertaining as only a curious, rapidly learning/exploring 1 year old can be.  He was enamored with Mare's dog Kaley.  She let him pick, pull, poke, and lay on her and never a protest or a groan from Kaley.  We were able to talk with Tommy a bit about his recently completed Fitzroy Traverse with Alex Honnold.  Fitzroy is a mountain near the town of El Chalten in Argentina (incidentally this is how Fitz got his name.  Fitz means son of thus Becca and Tommy's son is Fitz Thomas!).  Pam and I hiked to the lake at the base of Fitzroy when we were in El Chalten.  What Tommy and Alex did was history-making.  Here is a short description taken from a post about the traverse…

Between the 12 and 16th of February, Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell made the first complete traverse of the Fitzroy ridge. The ridge itself is frankly MASSIVE. They covered 5 kilometres, climbed 4000 vertical metres, and encountered difficulties up to 7a.

We won't describe more as we don't have the technical knowledge, but understand this was, as the article said, one MASSIVE undertaking. Check out the pictures I copied from Tommy's blog.

Now, we are back in the mountains. The sky is a deep blue, the mountains are still blindingly white with new snow--deposited each evening, and the wind is blowing. There have been flurries here, lower than the mountain tops, but at least no plowing so far. We wish you all a very happy St. Patrick's Day and peace and love whatever you are doing.

Pictures for this blog can be seen here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnpostpics/sets/72157642469095695/

Random Abstract

Once, a long time ago when I was still working, I took a psychological profile test.  All of the department chairs took the test at the same time and it gave me a great deal of pleasure, to be one of two identified as a "Random Abstract" thinker.  I guess what that means is that often I wander all over the place when I'm thinking about things.  That seems to be the case now, as the wind batters against our house.  

During the past month, several quotes came to my attention and more than one of them gave me pause.  Like this one from Annie Dillard:  "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." She goes on:  "...to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.  But what, exactly makes that possible?"  Most of us, Dillard suggests spend a good deal of time thinking about the future...what will happen tonight, how things will be at the party next weekend, what will happen to my child five years from now.  "But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present," she contends.  " ...what we know of the future...cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances."  

On the other hand, Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk says that the Buddah taught that it is essential to live, to focus, to act in the here and now.  This moment, not the next.  This person in front of you.  This thing that you are doing.  When you are doing the dishes, do the dishes one at a time.  When you are walking the dog, walk the dog on this block, this place, this step.  

In Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (a truly depressing, but thought provoking story) I read:  "...the past is a fog that breathes out ghost after ghost, the present a freeway thunder run at 90 mph, which makes the future the ultimate black hole of futile speculation..."  It may be that all of our speculation about how things should be, will be in the future is just a lie...a trick to lift us from whatever our here and now truly is.

And then Thich Nhat Hanh again:  "Though a million people may believe a lie, it is still a lie...You must have great courage to live according to the truth..."  Which brings me smack up against the last book I read,  The Monuments Men, in which Hitler was quoted saying, "The crowd will succeed in remembering only the simplest concepts repeated a thousand times."  And I think about our current day politicians who consistently lie and distort the truth to the public, spin it, twist it a thousand ways, until we have no idea what is true or not true, and therefore making it very difficult to ascertain what the pols are doing and what we really believe should be done.  Advice offered toward the end of the book:  "...history is more often than not a messy combination of intention, courage, preparation, and chance...There are fights that you may lose without losing your honor; what makes you lose your honor is not to fight them."  As I said, random abstract and as the wind continues to batter our very foundations here, I leave you to ponder anything or nothing of what I've written.

There are, of course, pictures to go with this blog (as if anything could).  Some scenes in and around Estes Park, animals, and ongoing road construction in the St. Vrain Canyon (highway 36) between Big Elk Meadows and Lyons where 6 miles of roadbed is being located 20 feet into the side of the mountain and away from the river.  There are also a few pictues of Lucy as she learned "No breakfast!" because we're going to Dr. C's so you can have your teeth cleaned.  

We are at present visiting Lee and Mare in Ft. Myers, FL.  Unfortunately, when we left Little Valley, so did three of the other snow plow people...and that night, five inches of snow fell all over Estes Park.  Random Abstract!  And so it goes from here.  We wish you all well.  Stay tuned for a follow up blog that is more linear and concrete...FL pics and an account of our travels.


Here is the link to the newest set of pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnpostpics/sets/72157641527730525/