Sunday, August 26, 2012

Old Florida Part 2: Our 'Secret Garden'


Looking at these photos, I wish I could absorb them into my soul, so that the ache will go away. I know you've had that experience where you just want to soak the view in as much as possible. And you stand there and you look and you look and you look and it's still not enough. All I have is these photographs of a time when I was there for maybe an hour or so peering, willing something of it to always stay with me, to not leave me, to not just be images I once encountered through a camera lens. 

There's a wonderful passage from "The Secret Garden" that I think is fitting:
"One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes."

I do believe that in these moments, so sweetly described by Frances Hodgson Burnett, that we are indeed connected to this earth and to each other and that the earth in these wordless displays of beauty shows us how...how to be.

I want to give credit to my guide for the evening, Mr. Earl Debary (DEE-bary), who is one of those people you can't quite believe is standing next to you. I firmly believe he knows everything there is to know about our grand forest, the Big Scrub. He's seen what I will never see, a little like William Bartram all those long years ago traipsing through Florida with eyes of wonder and gratitude. He sounds like people in the woods should sound, saying things like 'the creek's over yonder'. I marvel that this man is my friend. I wish I had only found him sooner. 

Photos from an August night hike out to Lake Eaton in the Ocala National Forest.






Sunday, August 19, 2012

Old Florida: Take a left then a right at the Mullet Dip sign.

I came back from Florida last week. I feel it receding from me - a wave on a shoreline. I can only chase it for a minute before it becomes a part of the great, wide ocean. 
Florida is ever so lush this time of year. The daily afternoon thunderstorms make sure of this. While California has eye-popping sunsets, the Florida summer sky almost takes over the horizon, infringing on its earthly compatriot. Those magnificent cumulus clouds demand homage on their sheer magnitude alone.
My cousin and I ventured up the Gulf Coast for a day, it was meant to be 3 days but I got food-poisoning from eating bad oysters. Even this turn in my luck could not diminish the one day we had on the road. I felt so much was packed into that one day. Not only did we see Old Florida, the beauty that most never get to see, we tasted strongly of the friendliness of the people who live there and those just passing through. A man in Apalach, as the natives refer to Apalachicola, told me, "Whenever you're feeling lower than whale manure, you remember that I'm proud of you." I mean, does it get any better than that? I love how a natural openness to 'strangers' was amplified in this place and came back to us tenfold. 

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip.

 Oh, beautiful North Florida.
 Farm on 464B.
 Goethe State Forest. My favorite photo from the trip. 464B.
 Y'all got some mullet dip?
 Heading into Cedar Key.
 Boat tour, Cedar Key.
 Boat tour, Cedar Key.
 Dinner view.
 The Grady Market, Historic building in Apalachicola.
 Sky over the water. Apalachicola.
 Downtown Apalachicola.
 Go Gators!!!
Storm comin' in ....Hwy 27.