The Skinny Island Post

A perfect day: clear skies, temperature in mid-seventies, light winds, made even better by the first paddle out of the season.  We were working on re-glazing some of the 20-odd, 60- year-old windows on the little hacienda this morning and I kept glancing up to check the water as it headed toward low tide.  An unspoken rule here is that any and all work can be temporarily abandoned for waves.  In the early stages of the remodel, it was pretty much fifty-fifty.  Not that bad anymore; it’s eighty/twenty in favor of the ocean  now, primarily because most of the heavy lifting is done around here.  Just upkeep now.  Anyway, we’ve been waiting for the right combination of water and air temperature, and a decent enough swell, to get back into things.

Pulled on the old spring suit and did some stretches on the beach, then easy paddle out to the line-up at the outer bar.  Water probably 65, not unpleasant after first plunge through an incoming.  Could tell right away the effects of the long winter.  Very out of breath when I made it out.  Waves in the 2-3 foot range, glassy, with the wind starting to pick up a little from the northeast.  Let two nice ones roll under me to gauge speed and strength, then paddled for third wave of that set and missed it.  No arms at all.  Every year it takes a little longer to get back into some kind of shape, but it’s a gradual, fun thing you’re not aware of because you’re out there, and it’s the best conditioning exercise I know of.

Caught the next one, a three footer that died after a few seconds.  Not much juice to these, which was a good thing.  Back out for two more, my self-imposed limit for today, panting like crazy with spaghetti arms, then headed in.  Showered off in the outside shower, and for about fifteen minutes thought I might croak, but recovered nicely, thank you, and started to feel the old euphoria.  Daily now, as conditions warrant.

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In the sun eating a home-made burrito garnished with cilantro, dill, and parsley from the garden, and guess who showed up again.  Yep, the little flying iridescent beetle, and this time I have a witness.  He landed on my leg this time, and just sat there.  I stuck out an index finger and he climbed up on it and sat there for, I swear, fifteen minutes without moving.  It would have been longer, but I finally got up and took him over to the Bougainvillea and gently deposited him there.  If this keeps up I’m going to have to name him.

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OK, this is weird.  Yesterday I related how a small iridescent beetle landed on my arm for a brief stay as I sat in the sun in a somnolent state.  I glibly noted I probably wouldn’t be seeing it again.  Well, same time, same chair, the same beetle, or its twin, landed on the same arm today, circled just below the elbow and flew off again.  Careful with glib assessments of random occurrence.

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It’s officially spring here on Skinny Island.  I have gone all day without shoes: beach, house, and garden.  We find shoes to be a necessary evil at all times of the year, but anathema when temperature is not an issue.  We will wear flip-flops when some sort of footwear is a legal requirement, but we frequent those places less and less these days.  Care even less for socks, of course, (except when hiking; don’t think we could have done a rim-to-rim of the Grand Canyon without socks.)  This a life-time commitment.  I think I may have had two pair of socks, total, from first grade through eighth.  In high school, Mr. Irv Cole, the Assistant Principal, made it something of a personal crusade to see that I wore socks with my Bass Weejuns.  He regularly appeared as I was standing in lunch line and politely but firmly asserted I find some socks.  I took to carrying some in my pocket, of course, and would put them on then and there, pick up my fish sticks, then remove them after Mr. Cole had finished the rest of his police work in the cafeteria.  Never wore socks running track either.  Socks are exceedingly geeky with track shoes.  The coolest thing I ever saw was David Jumper, a Seminole from South Florida, who took things a step further, if you will. At the state cross country meet my junior year, he ran the entire 5-mile course barefoot, over pavement and through the woods, and won going away.

Sand spurs, the occasional nail, and scorched soles from pavement and hot sand notwithstanding, shoes are restrictive, binding, and completely unnatural. We like to think we have developed a strong, broad base by going barefoot throughout most of the year, and I do not mean that entirely physically.

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Invigorating morning trimming old branches from Texas Sable palms out back with chain saw.  As they grow the lower branches die, leaving broken off stubs in a cross-hatch pattern circling the trunk.  Ultimately these decay even more when trimmed close, and fall off, leaving a relatively smooth trunk.   These rascals can grow up to 60 feet or more.  The saw palmettos, from which the dubious medicinal berry is extracted, stay close to the ground and spread horizontally.  And don’t ever try to dig one up without a back-hoe.  The big root ball of this sucker goes down about four feet and weighs a ton.  Guess that’s how they endure the harsh environment.  Washed windows on the north side after that.  Hadn’t used the hose in a while, and when we turned it on a Brown Anole shot out on a column of water, and landed, dazed and confused, some 20 feet away.  Hilarious.

Anoles can do some goofy stuff.  I saw this one from the house last summer and went out back to investigate.  He had somehow gotten his head stuck between the fronds of a palmetto, and was, for all intents and purposes, dead.  I took a few photos, naturally, then released him.  He was limp in my hand at first, mouth gaping, but then revived and leapt onto another palmetto. The always entertaining Anole.  Look for one near you.

Startled a young black snake as I was coming out of the studio.  He shot off into the almost- ready-to-bloom beach sunflowers near the house so fast I didn’t get a good look at him. Everything becoming active now. Took a nice leisurely low tide walk on the beach then settled into chair on the front deck for a little sun time.  A tiny flying beetle circled, then landed on my arm, and struggled with the forest of sun-lit hair there.  He was black, with iridescent green streaks on the carapace where the sun hit. Very small, very intact, very complete.  He flew off and I’ll probably never see him again.

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Somnolence is a great word.  It is defined as the quality or state of being drowsy. We like that.  And while we are a little too far north to claim Tropical Somnolence, which is endemic to whole populations, we did experience the first symptoms this afternoon of Subtropical Sun-induced Somnolence, which, experience tells us, will increase incrementally and in direct proportion to the rise in temperature.  It manifests as a kind of daze, somewhere between laziness and stupor, though meaningless tasks are possible, (no heavy machinery, please) and long, escapist mind wandering unavoidable.  We live for this condition.  We don’t know how we were ever able to go to work and function through it, though, as luck would have it, Papa frequently had hospice patients to see on Skinny Island, and was able to duck into the little hacienda for a nap on occasion, which saved him. Truth be told, and contrary to the Protestant Ethic, Sun-induced Somnolence is not something, like a cold or flu, to be worked through.  It is to be given over to, wholly and without reservation.  Lizards understand this; snakes, cats certainly, and even some dogs understand this.  We see people pass by all the time who mistakenly have undertaken a walk to the convenience store while in the grip of Sun-induced Somnolence, and it is a painful thing to watch.  Give it up.  There is a Somnolence-shaped hole in everyone.  Let go and let Somnolence.

It should also be noted that acceptance of this way of life is dependent on a disdain for air-conditioning, which is the kill-joy, the death-knell of Sun-induced Somnolence.  Growing up without A/C in either homes or schools in Florida, we learned to embrace Somnolence as children, and that has served us well in later years.  We run the air when people come over– not unexpectedly an infrequent occurrence– and must remain relatively alert and conversant.  I am relating this now, in the early stages of Sun-induced Somnolence, because in a month, and certainly thereafter, I won’t be able to.  I have to go now.

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We saw the first Skink of spring this morning, crawling up between the planks of the back deck.  For the uninitiated, uninformed and just plain slow, a Skink (family Scincidae)  is a fat bluish lizard that looks like a short garter snake with feet.  Unlike the other prolific lizard residents here, particularly the green and brown Anole, and the Gecko, which are playfully appealing and fun to watch, the Skink is an altogether disturbing critter in looks and behavior.  They are furtive and way too pliable, owing, I guess, to the fact that they have no bones whatsoever, a primitive holdover that conjures deep feelings of malevolence and distrust.  I’m thinking maybe the snake in the Garden in Genesis was really a Skink. Sorry to be so hard on an innocent creature, but there you have it.  Not so sure about the innocence either.

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So here’s how an unfettered, slightly off-kilter mind can work.  Last night, about two a.m., one of the smoke alarms went off.  There were a couple of long beeps, not the chirping like when the battery is going.  Then it stopped.  I don’t know what triggered it, maybe some ozone floating by, or some methane released by the cat or one of the other residents here, but as I lay there waiting for another beep, which would make me have to get up and investigate, and with the crashing of the surf in the background, I started thinking about the technology of such signaling devices, which soon segued, probably because of the ocean, to a plan to rig a device to signal in the house when a sea turtle was coming ashore.  Stay with me here.  It’s not really that great a leap.  Turtle season is just around the corner, May 1, to be exact, and in 16 years here we’ve only witnessed two laying their eggs, both last summer.

The first was when my lovely niece was visiting from Oregon.  We had gone down to the beach at dusk with chairs and Champaign to enjoy the close of a wonderful day and saw a big mama making her way up the beach from the surf.  We sat as close as we could without distracting her and watched the whole process, the laborious digging of the hole, the laying of the more than a hundred eggs, her slow crawl back to the water, for more than two hours.  It was a once in a lifetime experience.  Two months later we were lucky enough to see those eggs hatch and the little turtles scramble for the ocean.

The other one came ashore early one morning, just before light, and lay a nest a few yards from the first.  It is very rare that they come ashore in daylight; she must have had a rough night getting in.  We got some pictures of that one.  Anyway, here’s the plan:  I want to rig some kind of motion sensor down on the beach that will set off an alarm in the house when a turtle comes ashore within a certain arc.  I’ve actually checked it out, and there are some available that just might work over the range we have to cover.  I know, I know, anything that goes by will also set it off, but the birds are few and far between at night, and a night heron I’d probably want to see anyway.  That leaves the occasional drunk, which, as I’ve related, remains an issue.  But I’ve thought that through, too.  I think I can kill two birds with one stone– clear the beach, and heal a drunk in one well-timed, stealthy attack.  Stay tuned.

Sea Turtle

Ah, a relative blessed quiet has descended on Skinny Island in our brief absence; the motorcycles are gone, poof, vanished, but coming back into the town and crossing the bridge the automobile traffic was like a holiday weekend, not a Monday.  The beach parking lots are full.  We have just one more smallish invasion to endure, the Spring Breakers, but when they go, and with them the last of the Snow Birds, we’ll have the place to ourselves through the best time– the heat none of them can endure– until October, when another highly marketed event occurs, Biketoberfest.

To be honest though, we don’t get many spring breakers up this way on the island, and the ones we do see are usually attempting to escape some of the madness farther south.  But even Daytona isn’t the drunken destination it long was, partly due to the fickle nature of what’s currently the hot place, and partly because of a kind of cultural schizophrenia with which Daytona is afflicted.  They just can’t seem to clearly decide what tribe they want down there, the Breakers, the Bikers, the NASCAR types, the young families.  There is, certainly, a more or less designated time of year set aside for each– we’re coming into Family Time after the Breakers clear– but not all businesses (and it’s all about business) can successfully cater across the board, leading to a lot of infighting and name-calling as each group pushes for dominance.  The result is a lot of empty hotel rooms and decaying businesses, a funky, blighted beach side, appealing most consistently to folks on the lam.  We can’t accurately quote statistics, but it seems to us that, if they aren’t actually pinched here, more bad apples pass through here than anywhere else in the country.  A dubious distinction.

I guess I reserve the most ambivalence for the Snow Bird tribe, being in most ways the least offensive, yet perpetrating an air of superiority, kind of like a benign occupation force. This is essentially their playground, a rented paradise in which to wait out the spring thaw up north, but they in no way view themselves as visitors.  They exude dominance on the roads and in the grocery stores, holding to the view that, while this might be a nice place to hang for a few months, it in no way can compare to New York or Montreal.  They have better water, better stores, better roads, better infrastructure, whatever that is, and certainly better food.  You can’t get a good pizza here, you know.  I had one tell me once that if it weren’t for them coming to Florida we’d all still be living in houses with dirt floors. Whatever, I can think of worse things than dirt floors.  Still, with the proper distance, they are amusing.  It’s like watching a group of puffed-up wintering birds, taking over for a time, pooping on the beach, as it were, then flying back north.  And I just love watching old guys driving shirtless in big Cadillacs in the dead of winter.  Please don’t do that.

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The Feral Poet doesn’t care much for Daytona Bike Week, especially the last weekend, when good weather like we’re having makes A1A a thunderous spectacle of overheated faux machismo.  He dropped off this one poem before splitting for the Gulf coast.

Bike Week

Do-rag and safe little
neatly trimmed beard
twenty-thousand dollar cycle
straight pipe decibles
and a practiced, menacing look
to assure the others
in this horde of fakers
that you’re deep down bad;
don’t mess with you Mr. marketing guy,
car dealer, sales rep, cop, fireman, bozo.

Hide the women and children
lock the doors,
insecurity has money now
and loves company;
the epitome of individualism,
the realization of the American Dream,
Angels and Outlaws spinning
in their living graves.

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We’ve talked a good bit about our relative isolation here on Skinny Island, our reverence for the quiet, simple, small life dictated by the ocean and the changing seasons, but something else is happening here now as well, something unforseen and equally wonderful.  It’s kind of like watching a vast, never-ending film, a “tapestry of rich and royal hue” that, in a quite healthy way, I think, is opening to a wider acceptance and understanding.

Normally pathologically punctual, we were nevertheless late arrivals to this happening.  It had been happily underway for quite some time, apparently, when we tuned in.  Invitation to attend had come from far and wide, but we had reservations of a different kind.  We’re talking about the Social Network, of course, and while there are still reservations, we see things now in a different light.

It is, in some ways mesmerizing, almost dreamlike, certainly surreal, (describing the best of film.)  I watch the musings, antics, activities, anxieties, triumphs, and failures of sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews.  I am in tune with friends from childhood, high school, college, college again, and later professional and social friends, professors and co-workers.  Contacts in California, Colorado, Utah, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, and other places regale me with their everyday lives.  That’s the beautiful key: the everydayness of it all.  It is a glimpse into all these lives, as they exist, day to day, better and worse, that is so riveting.  The travel, observations of weather and mood, having a meal someplace special, preparing for a sermon or class, horses jumping, birds and snow, remembrances and hopes, sonograms of impending babies, concerts, frustrations, sicknesses, and other amazing little insights into life on the move.  I am thankful and awed, moved and inspired.  That we are able to do this, through technology, an often maligned innovation, I find truly remarkable and satisfying.  I have re-established contact with old friends, and cemented bonds long dormant.  In short, I have connected.  The movie flows on endlessly, within you and without you.

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Multiple flights of large numbers of pelicans the past few days, headed south to north.  Must be filling in back up the peninsula from wintering farther south. Fifteen to twenty in a group, they glide along the dune line, or over the road with barely a flap of wings for long periods.  I have driven  alongside such flights and clocked them at close to 40 miles per hour.  They are among the most efficient flyers in the bird world, I think.  It is their great wingspan, of course, in conjunction with that smallish (compared to wingspan) body, and the ability to tuck in the neck and pouch and lead with a now aerodynamic beak.  Plus, they are amazingly light for their size.  I found one down in the palmettos one day a few years back, obviously sick and unable to fly.  Holding his beak in one hand to control his weak but determined snapping, and cradling his body in my other arm, I carried him down to the lifeguard station, where they took over and transported him to a bird care facility.  It was a mile and a half walk, during which we got to know each  other fairly well.  It was a great experience for me, and I felt him relax and stop struggling along the way, so perhaps some common ground was achieved.  The greatest impression was how light he was.  I expected a much heavier bird, given the size, a weight to wingspan ratio that must aid that glide.  For years I watched them glide along the line of incoming waves, adjusting their flight to stay just ahead of the actual break,  and assumed, or was told, that they were scouting for fish in the wave.  Not true, and it was being in the water myself that pointed to what they were really doing.  Waves make their own wind.  Little waves make light winds as they move, big waves make stronger winds.  You can feel it when a wave passes under you on a board.  A few feet above the surface the accompanying wind passes also.  It is a marvelous sensation, especially on an otherwise calm day.  The pelicans use the wind for lift and thrust.  That’s how they can fly so long without a flap of their wings.  So there.

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A reader of these pages recently observed that, if nothing else, this is a record of deeply appreciating and loving a place.  I guess so.  I have thought of it as a kind of practice, a meditation, if you will; all of it, the watching, the listening, the writing it down.  Maybe such meditations should not be public, but this one, in a small way is, and then again, maybe sharing is good practice, too.

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Intermittent showers overnight, then a lull at dawn during which we were able to get in a beach walk under dark, rolling clouds.  Substantial rain began as we ascended the dune walkover.  Garden and St Francis quite pleased.  Everything is up and looking good so far.  Peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, crook-neck, cantaloupe, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, parsley, cilantro, dill, oregano, rosemary, mint, basil, okra, radishes, and lettuce.  Sounds like a lot, but there’s not a lot of each.  Small space gardening. The rain should soak into the hay and keep things wet for days.  That’s the idea, anyway.  Rain barrels now full as well.

Needing and anticipating rain for a purpose, as in nurturing a garden, is its own kind of game, and one in which I participate with gusto.  But I’ve also always thought rain was just about the coolest thing going, for its own sake.  Very early on I was fascinated with  the notion of water falling out of the sky.  That simple (not really) act of physics, which we take for granted, has always seemed to me to be the most visible, concrete expression of magic in the world.  Water falling from the sky.  Come on, really?  And the forms in which it appears:  misty, individualized but gentle, hard, driven by wind, accompanied by thunder and lightning, all day drizzle, fast-moving storm, each presentation with its own mood and character. 

As I’ve mentioned, because of the workings of the opposing sea breezes, we don’t get the clock-work afternoon summer thunder showers here on Skinny Island we used to experience inland, and I miss that.  You can see and hear them stacking up and dying out just to our west.  Sometimes we’ll go out and try to urge them through, billowing dark clouds a mile off, bright blue sky overhead.  And sometimes it works.

Having a thunderstorm pass over and then watching it move out to sea is one of the great treats of living here.  Lightning strikes over water, the curved sweep of gray rain against a white sky over olive water.  Beautiful.  We remain hopeful of spotting a waterspout or two before the curtain falls.  Years ago, while surfing with my son down near the south end of the island, we saw one about a mile out.  You could clearly see the wild disturbance of its contact with the surface,  and hear the roar, the column snaking up into the storm as it ripped to the south.  Most impressive. 

I guess I’m a weather junkie; this weather; the clash of cool and warm moist air that gives us such frequent atmospheric calamity.  But I digress.  Right now, I’m just glad the garden is getting some rain.

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