Within Close Range - Florida Days: the Early Years

The earliest days I spent in Florida with Nonnie and Papa are the first I knew of my independence; made particularly visual due to this peculiar land of tropical scents and strikingly unfamiliar sights.

Far removed from the only place I knew, home.

The first apartment Nonnie and Papa kept there to escape Chicago's meanest of seasons was in Hallandale, on Florida’s east coast. It was a small, but airy, two bedroom built at the corner of an inland canal; brightly decorated in yellows, greens, blues and whites.

Yet perpetually shaded from the Sunshine State. 

Put to bed well before the sun sank, I used to lay in the back sitting room-turned-bedroom for hours on end, tossing and turning on the fold-out sofabed. 

Poked by every relentless lump and coil.

I’d listen intensely to the unfamiliar sounds of apartment living, made especially audible by the glass-vented door in my room that opened onto the building's exterior hallways.

My slatted portals to the outside world.

Sounds of the apartment people returning from the pool, the shops, the grocers. 

Of doorbells ringing and little feet skipping.

Hugs and kisses being exchanged.

Marvelling at how laughter bounced against the cement walls of the nearby stairwell and happy voices disappeared instantly with the slam of a heavy car door. 

I’d breath in the ladies' perfumes as they strolled past the open vents.

With the ocean winds, came the scent of orange blossoms and creeping jasmine, algae, brine and fresh oiled asphalt.

Inside, the muffled voices of the television in the living room regularly added to my apartment-living symphony.

Its familiar sounds and flickering lights leaking through the bottom of the door, casting strange figures on the thickly carpeted, recently vacuumed floor, offered great comfort.

As did the vision of Papa in the room next door.

In his chair.

Feet up.

Arms folded high across his belly, 

A large RC Cola at his side. 

Grinning at Clem Kadiddlehopper or growling at the Chicago Bears. 

I’d watch the skies grow dark through the opaque door, as the lights of the apartment complex grew bright. And when all was quiet, I'd lay very, very still, in that unfamiliar dark, to hear the inland water's slow, buoyant motion.

Then I'd sleep.

Deeply.

And wake to the day creeping through the vents; lingering on the lumpy mattress, listening to the apartment people as they began their day.

Wooed by the sounds of those stirring, I’d soon stretch toward the clanking of kitchen utensils and the smells of breakfast cooking on the other side of the wall.

Oh these, my Florida days.

Of sand slipping away beneath my feet at the edge of the ocean.

Seashell hunts as the sun dipped low.

Nonnie's bunioned toes and skinny legs (strikingly similar to the surrounding seagulls) dipping into the foamy waves.

Never getting in past her ankles.

Never a creature of the sea.

These early days of sunset walks along a stretch of beach that led to a lighthouse and a tottering, creaky wharf where Papa liked to walk.

And I liked to walk with him.

Where fishing boats had funny names and a tiny gift shop, in a weather-beaten shanty, sold orange gumballs packed in little, wooden orange crates. 

Oh these, my early years.

Of bright, green lizards skittering across pastel walls, pats on the head by terri-cloth clad men playing cards in the shade of umbrellas, and a kidney-shaped pool where suntanned women with ever-blossoming bathing caps, great bosoms and sagging arms, forever wade in the shallow end.