Salt Life

Meditations for when stranded on top of a bridge.

Today I set out on my usual run. I leave from my place on Ward Island, run over the Dunedin Causeway that connects to Honeymoon Island, then turn around and come back. It was a gorgeous day. A little windy and a little cold (70 degrees), but this made the Gulf water Caribbean blue. As I approached the drawbridge on my return I noticed the gates were down and cars were very backed up. I ran up a ways to see some cops and the bridge operators inspecting the middle metal grates.

This closed bridge mystery went on for about 45 minutes.

People got out of their cars and set up their beach chairs in the road. Kids were flinging their fishing poles everywhere shouting obscenities. Florida behavior. One skinny lady with a blowout in Birkenstocks and socks was losing her mind about missing a flight. Some guy marched himself up to the gates yelling repeatedly across the bridge at the police about not poking a “bees nest”. People were losing their cool. No one was in control.

One older man walked up beside me and we started talking. He’s a snowbird too, down from Pennsylvania where he was born and raised. We talked about up North. He doesn’t love Portland, he doesn’t love New York City. He went hunting in Maine once but didn’t get anything. He loves Nova Scotia where the tide can reach 53 feet. We talked about when we’re both going back (next month), and how four months can feel like four days.

It’s pretty windy standing at the top of the bridge. My sweat and zinc are drying in a crusty layer on my face. I’m starting to get cold in my running shorts that I couldn’t fit into when I first got down here and can now only slightly fit into.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, as literal chaos was erupting around us, my Pennsylvania friend starts to tell me about his neighbor down here, his “buddy” that used to take him out on his boat. They would try to fish, but he sensed he wasn’t so good at fishing because they never caught anything. Last year Pennsylvania was back up North having knee surgery. When he woke up, he texted his Florida friend and got a response from the friend’s son-in-law. He had died from a heart attack unexpectedly the day before. He was only 65.

I told him I was really sorry to hear that, and we spoke about how you just “never know” and how the buddy was a nurse his whole life but never himself got a stress test. Seeing he was getting choked up (bridge chaos still chaosing) I awkwardly changed the subject, talking about how my family used to sail around here as well. This went on for a few more minutes, then we said goodbye and he walked back down the bridge back to wait in his car.

I thought about how I would probably never see him again and wondered how many more snowbird seasons he would live for. Admittedly I have this kind of thought often after talking to strangers down here. Will you be around next year?

I have about a month left in Florida before I begin to make my way back upstate. This year I would be lying if I told you I was excited to go. I asked my therapist tonight if she thought this was escapist. Hiding out in conservative paradise where the only things on the weekend agenda are to go to Publix and help Mel with house projects. Seabird, my home here, is small and manageable. I don’t go to the doctor (health insurance doesn’t work outside NY), I’m not really “involved” in anything, I don’t have any friends but the Bunko Babes.

Often the real world seems at least an arm’s length away where in New York it feels under my skin. This is both kind of nice and dangerously privileged.

There’s also an unescapable undercurrent of if I will be around next year. Not like in a life or death sense (??!?!?!?!) but in a will I be able to afford two properties, what will the hurricane season be like, etc etc etc it’s 2am fetch me my lorazepam.

As I’ve written about before I have a tendency to want to preserve things, especially special things. Freeze them in time, not use them up, not forget them, keep them precious, keep them safe. This of course never works as everything is temporary and nothing stays the same. And aren’t we lucky for that.

I’m reading Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby. It’s all about stories — ones we tell ourselves about our lives, ones we tell ourselves about others’ lives in order to have empathy for them. In it she references a story you might have heard before. It’s the one where the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi is asked by a student if he could sum up Zen in a sentence and he responded “Everything changes.”

Nesting in two homes, in two environments, has resulted in an almost constant state of mental transition which is funny because what I think about most is how I can attain stability. God laughs.

Shortly after my conversation with Pennsylvania, the bridge opened. The woman in socks and Birkenstocks sprinted across to make her flight, the rowdy kids went back to fishing off the beach, the guy screaming about bee hives continued to scream as he marched himself past the cops. I finished my run. Everyone back to their lives, just one little moment of chaos and connection we all got to share together.

Florida Woman