Charlie’s Chatter

I haven’t been here in Florida long enough to know the vagaries of the weather, but March is clicking along with a lingering overtone that this is probably the last time I will be able to use the words “lovely” and “sunny” to refer to the same morning. In a couple of months it’ll just be that muggy, humid heat that makes the outdoors unbearable. And with spring break drawing to a close it is certain to be a while before I can walk down to Lake Alice again and plonk myself by the water for no reason.

There’s something very odd about the first time you visit Lake Alice. The turtles seem too large and the ‘gators too small, the trees seem to grow right out of the water and there’s this creepy tingling feeling that something’s going to crawl out of the water and sneak right up on you. But soon you get used to it. And on a spring day it’s a beautiful place to visit. All nice and quiet with the cool wind blowing; it’s quite a large lake with a few islands sprinkled around. And you can see the turtles swimming aimlessly about, getting right up to the bank before swerving away at the last minute. And there’s always an alligator or two floating aimlessly about with fish swimming around it and ibises pottering around the shore like some obsessive gardener in a weedy flowerbed. In places the water and the shore blend seamlessly under the reeds and willows of the swamp, at others they stand starkly apart, tense and abrupt. Of course the customary egrets and cormorants and herons hang around, never in any real hurry. And butterflies and nondescript brown thinglets flit around in the foliage. I’m not sure if there are too many flowers around but the forest seems real enough, and dense too. It’s pristine, and beautiful; you could imagine sitting there forever.

Yet I cannot bring myself to do it. I cannot bring myself to love the place. For all its beauty, it seems unreal, like a face without a name, cold and distant, more tolerant than welcoming, foreboding perhaps, and even uncaring.  It’s beautiful, but completely foreign, familiar enough to recognize, yet not friendly. It’s like some vague acquaintance, who greets you with alacrity but at once turns taciturn. Someone you approach with a smile and hang awkwardly around before that vague sullen disgust of an overstayed welcome settles on you and you leave. Maybe next time I’ll just nod curtly and be on my way.

Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find he had transformed into a monstrous vermin.

Adulthood has a way of arriving like the rising tide. First the gurgling ripples, heady with joy as they tickle the toes. Then the torpid puddle around the ankles, always there or there about, never noticed, until it so rudely ebbs away leaving nothing but sand in the toes and the memories on soaked jeans. Then the waves arriving in earnest, up around the thighs and yes, it’s a little further in that your mom or dad would approve of, but you’re growing up now aren’t you, so you laugh and stay, to feel the First Little Corruption power brought. And then before you know it, there you are, waist deep in the sea and every now and again, the ocean throws you this way or that, leaning on you like some inglorious drunk, as you struggle to stay on your feet, under its brute strength.  And then you usually trudge back to the beach, for there are some things that must not be tempted except, now that isn’t an option and all that’s left is for you to jump in and try to swim to Japan.

Growing up is the realization, at once comic and tragic, of how woefully out of place you are in what was once home.  What you once thought was home. What was yours and familiar and loved because it was so familiar – now drifts wanly like some watery streak of raw pink on a grey metamorphosis, tepid like some inadequate adjective, lingering on with the bitter aftertaste of a metaphor pushed too far. Congratulations, you have grown up. Gregor Samsa lives.