On And Off The Key West Porch

One of Cheyenne's salient traits is her immense fund of patience. To me at least, doting as I do on her, she appears to be extremely patient. She puts up with me dithering over her at home, when out walking she ignores anything that tries to distract her from her appointed pursuit of smells. This cat would have driven me mad had it pursued me as doggedly as it pursued Cheyenne, yet she simply pretended it wasn't there.

I've seen her ignore Key deer to the point of making them crazy with curiosity as she stands there and chews grass alongside them. She never even sees chickens as they scatter on her approach. All she notices are the pizza crusts and cold fries in her path. Cats need have no fear of this tremendous force of nature:

We were ambling up Virginia Street earlier this week and we passed a mother fussing over her child in a stroller. The mother said something to me in heavily accented English and my ears simply wren't attuned to her Slavic intonation. She sounded like she had a cold and was hocking up a huge loogie. What she was actually saying, with some fierce Russian annoyance, was that her toddler was afraid of Cheyenne. Had she been empowered I'd have gone straight to the gulag, not passed go nor would I have collected two hundred bucks for my trouble. Mind you being afraid of Cheyenne sounds like a recipe for a very timid life indeed. Some people know how to enjoy winter in Key West:

It gives me pleasure to see people commuting by bicycle. It is a hugely desirable lifestyle among the self consciously ecological types Up North yet in Key West it is simply the cheapest most effective way to save money for booze in a bar later. Cycling is not a fashionable sport for most a Key west riders. My nephew who used to ride and race obsessively on a bicycle didn't think much of a key west Asa destiny too , too. Flat. And limited. I think he has a point but as a bicycle commuter destination it's about perfect.

For some people a bicycle is their only means of getting around. This guy was sleeping it off on the porch of an unoccupied house, his bicycle nearby.

The future of commuting for all of us is smaller cars. Europeans pay. Two and a half times as much for. Gas as we do but they still clog their streets and roads with cars. They drive smaller and more fuel efficient cars. Imagine how cheap our commutes would get with 60mpg cars....and how easy to park a car smaller than a full sized truck.

Virginia is one of two states that has outlawed radar detectors, though they are legal here. I looked into them after my last speeding ticket - the ticket was $130 the radar detector $500, so I didn't buy one. But this tag with the fuzzy cover on it looks like it might mess up cameras tires at particular angles. Hmm...that can't be legal can it?

All of which is very interesting but I was also thinking about animals in this essay. Like Key West's famous wild chickens which are ignored by my dog, so they stand around looking at us impertinently. Very annoying. "Kill!" I order my dog. She ignores me.

One reason I loathe the chickens is not because they are noisy, they are, but because they are messy. This section of sidewalk was murder to walk on as the wood chips were like marbles underfoot. And the only reason the mulch was all over the sidewalk was...Because of the damned chickens.

I may get annoyed at the chickens but other people get mad about lots of other stuff in this crowded little town. Like who dumps their trash where, and why.

As a result of this sort of irritation I double bag Cheyenne's droppings and either haul them home on the gas cap of the car or I dump them in a. City trash can. You'd think people would be grateful to see trash in their capacious trash cans rather than littering the streets. However because folk are weird they'd rather wade through garbage than share a four foot tall trash can. It's good for Cheyenne though as you'd be amazed at the amount of food left on the ground. Against all odds dogs are smarter than people 67% of the time, studies show.

 

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Derek Walcott, A Caribbean Poet

“The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.”
― Derek Walcott

I saw this quotation outside the home of painter Rick Worth who lives where a true Key a West character used to live until she died not so long ago, the noted bottle home of Carolyn Fuller Bottle wall made artist a Key West icon | KeysNews.com. It occurred to me that there may be some few people who have not read the poetry of Derek Walcott of St Lucia in the West Indies, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature..

Derek Walcott - Wikipedia,

After The Storm

There are so many islands!
As many islands as the stars at night
on that branched tree from which meteors are shaken
like falling fruit around the schooner Flight.
But things must fall,and so it always was,
on one hand Venus,on the other Mars;
fall,and are one,just as this earth is one
island in archipelagoes of stars.
My first friend was the sea.Now,is my last.
I stop talking now.I work,then I read,
cotching under a lantern hooked to the mast.
I try to forget what happiness was,
and when that don't work,I study the stars.
Sometimes is just me,and the soft-scissored foam
as the deck turn white and the moon open
a cloud like a door,and the light over me
is a road in white moonlight taking me home.
Shabine sang to you from the depths of the sea.

So often the Nobel prize for literature seems to reward writers who, as hard as it is to say it, deserve their obscurity. Over the years I have tried to read and thus understand why some few strange names seemed to have been picked as though at random by the Scandinavians... Elias Canetti anyone? Canetti, Man of Mystery | I tried to read Auto da Fé and got nowhere when he got the Nobel in 1981.

But Walcott is an easy poet. I suppose that's no great thing to say about a writer in a world filled with pulp, but his poems inspired by the world he grew up in, is poetry revealing the Caribbean to those of us who have the misfortune to think it is a place that it is not. Yet Walcott is also very much a man of the rest of the world too.

Midsummer, Tobago

Broad sun-stoned beaches. White heat. A green river. A bridge, scorched yellow palms from the summer-sleeping housedrowsing through August. Days I have held, days I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters,my harbouring arms.

Derek Walcott, an antidote to midwinter.

Key West on Dwellable

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Big Pine Dog Joy

I love moonlight. I look out of my house at night and see that peculiar white light from the moon dappled by the trees around my home and I like what I see. However the sun has to set before sister moon can make an appearance.

We took a cool evening walk, my dog and I, but I went late in an effort to be in the woods as dusk settled over the Keys.

Cheyenne wandered off into the bushes leaving me to read and watch the light fade away as the words on the page became illegible.

It is a pleasant thing to stand among the trees and to read a little and meditate a little and to look up and idly watch the clouds a little.

 

I don't think I was feeling as smug as I looked.

But it was a fine spot to be smug in.

My dog does not hold me to a high moral standard, fortunately.

A plane full of people high in the heavens, eating dolls house sized portions of peculiar food, being whisked along at 550 miles an hour, six miles up in the sky all while leaving a white trail of air pollution.

I rarely take pictures with the flash as I don't much like the effect.

This time it might have been beneficial.

We got home in time for dinner as fascinated as we were by nighttime.

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In And Out Of Meetings

I met Curt yesterday, actually he met me, waving at me while I was walking Cheyenne with my mind elsewhere. Earlier I had had one of those blog reader encounters near the library, strangers that tend to take me by surprise, "Hi, that must be Cheyenne..." The guy was even more shy than me and backed away rapidly before I could be properly polite. So when Curt gestured in front of Fausto's Food Palace I got a bit muddled until I came back to Earth and recognized him. Two blog readers in one day would have been a bit much.

I met Curt almost twenty five years ago when I was a radio reporter in Tampa and I lived on my sailboat in the Vinoy Basin in St Petersburg. We were anchored next door to each other and bonded one night during a horrendous summer thunderstorm, our little boats bouncing at anchor, while another neighbor, a long time anchor out himself, got hit by lightning that blew a hole in his trimaran. Curt sailed to Key West before me and has lived at anchor ever since and since that time and place when we both nearly drowned together we have kept in sporadic touch.

Key West Diary: Curt . We lamented the passing of the years and I mentioned to Curt that I am getting antsy about making the best use of the next 15 years, the last active phase of my life I expect. We are the same age and he mentioned he has inherited his mother's arthritis and he needs to figure a physically less demanding way to live than at anchor on his boat. To that end he bought a boat slip in southwest Florida, on the mainland. He paid thirty grand for a permanent berth for his boat in a modern Marina, as good an investment as any, he smiled, in this zero interest world. A similar place to park your boat around here might cost five to eight times as much if you wanted to buy a place to love on Stock Island. For some people yoga at the old Coffee Mill enhances life, for me I have travel plans. Don't know where or when, yet, but that's the idea, first a dream then a plan then a ticket! But I want Key West to be my home, even in retirement.

'

It's getting harder and harder for incomers to plan a retirement in this town. Conchs inherit a mortgage free home, some of them, and they get to stay. Everyone else needs lots of cash, and there are plenty of good enough places to retire that cost less than Key West. I'd like to think we may be able to stay till death us do part, but retirement will be an interesting journey for my wife and I when it gets here. We may have to leave, we may want to, who knows but before that plan has to be dealt with I want to live a little more, even as we work. I was surprised Curt had taken an active step to secure a future elsewhere, but he said the anchoring regulations being enacted are making it less likely living free off the shores of Key West will be possible. Combine that with encroaching joint pain and he too started to consider a retirement plan. Who would have thunk?

That's life though, isn't it? We make plans and life happens. My sisters have lived in the same place, on the same farms all their lives. Me? I have wandered all my life, so far, and I can't explain why but traveling equals life for me. Perhaps it's a way to be without thinking, at least for a while, watching the road unspool under your wheels. But Key West is a good place to land, and lucky are they that can assure themselves a spot.

The blog reader caught me in the middle of the street, calling Cheyenne not me, he was attracted to my big yellow furry calling card. I read your blog before I got here he said, I moved to Key West two months ago, he added with a big grin. I wanted to ask, to find out but he was gone, back onto the sidewalk leaving me holding Cheyenne by the leash, she intent still on the other side of the road. God knows what plans he had if any, it was as if he had never stopped me, and I none the wiser!

I like Key West because it isn't all of a piece. It's messy, over priced, crowded and annoying. It's funny and challenging and it always feels as though you are on a tightrope. If you lose your balance you fall, and the tightrope is a long way up if you want to climb back on. For someone like me who isn't very adept at working friendships and connections the tightrope is a delicate platform and my job is my lifeline. Curt has lived his life in Key West by the opposite means, walking not driving, working not vacationing, living at anchor not paying rent. For me it's too tight to live like that, though he has crowds of connections, acquaintances and networking friends to fall back on. I have a wife and a dog.

With Cheyenne resting at my feet I was talking with Curt, when I saw two people coming towards us on the sidewalk. They were an older couple, friends of my wife the socializer, and we have been round to their house a few times. I smiled and said hello. They looked at me and I could see they were asking themselves who the hell were these two scruffy oicks and were they about to ask for a hand out. Recognition was as far from their minds as I was from desiring to make myself known.

I could have used their names, and they would have recognized me but it would have meant more talking and I was all talked out. They strode on while Curt and I went back to sharing a few last thoughts before he went back to the docks to untie a cruise ship, and I went back to the car. It's a funny old place Key West. The wealthy couple own a factory Up North a magnificent home in Key West and an extended family with charities and all the obligations of an important life. Curt lives on the margins, as unconventional a life as any but entirely on his own terms. Me? I'm in the middle, a bit of this and a taste of that, a conventional unconventional life on my terms limited by my shortcomings. And we all converged in the same piece of sidewalk in the only small town that could accommodate us in our shorts and short sleeved shirts, rags and riches.

They say Key West lives outside the law which is as silly a thing as any that is said about the Southernmost City. On the way home there were half a dozen local and state cops flashing their lights on the Overseas Highway, with more nestled under the palms in the median ready to catch the unwary speeder. Not me, not today, thanks, fifty five will be ample for me and my homeward bound dog.

That was an interview I was ready to avoid. I had done enough talking for one day.

 

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No Name No See'Ums

The cooler winter weather has produced clear skies and remarkable sunsets. There has also fallen a large amount of unseasonable rain which has cleared the atmosphere.

I hadn't been out to No Name Key in a while and I hoped that with the cooler weather Cheyenne might be induced to take a walk in the woods on one of my favorite trails. It started out well enough but fifty yards in she did her Cheyenne thing and decided this wasn't for her and she stopped and stared at me. Lacking the power of speech a solid stare from my Labrador in the middle of a walk indicates she wants to change direction. Give her credit, she knows her own mind.

So she took up her favorite alligator position, spread eagled on the ground to take advantage of the cool earth and I leaned up against the car and read my phone. I never cease to be amazed by the ability of my pocket phone to store books and allow me to read me anywhere on a whim. I have even downloaded books while standing around in line. It is a dangerous thing that "one click purchase" in the Kindle store, but what a wonder it is to have a whole selection of books stored in one's camera, alongside the telephone and the flashlight...

Even though it's winter the no see'ums were unbearable when they realized there was unprotected flesh to snack on and I had to persuade my dog with the impenetrable fur to get back into to the car for the drive home. Some people say flies are God's mistake but for my money there is nothing more vexing and useless than a no see'um and they never travel alone.

I am no angler but I guess the people standing like statues fishing on the bridge were far enough from the mangroves to be insect-free. Some people say Skin So Soft by Avon keeps no see'ums away but in my experience, with my skin, nothing works. At least I don't get welts but I was rubbing my calves frenetically as I drove. For some reason I figure very cold air from the air conditioner helps with the scratching so we were freezing as we went, frigid air blasting in an effort to drive away the maddening desire to scratch.

Life is an irrational occupation, like the dude who takes a boat to kill a fish and enjoys the time on the water. Much easier to buy a fillet at Winn Dixie, but less fun he would argue.

No Name Pub, which is actually on Big Pine Key, was doing a land sale business as usual in winter. One day the craft beer revolution will penetrate this corner of the world too, and something more interesting than Yuengling in a folding plastic cup will be on offer one bright day at the pub. I've heard that the former Parrotdise restaurant on Little Torch has been sold so perhaps draught Smithwicks will return there to benefit the under served Lower Keys. I am no fan of the bitter hops of the fashionably undrinkable India Pale Ale rage that is sweeping the country, but something more palatable than fizzy alcoholic water would nice if it were offered somewhere.

With a bridge under apparently permanent construction I had time to sit and ponder these shortcomings in the beer availability in the area. A remarkably comprehensive liquor store opened not too long ago on Summerland Key and their wine and liquor selections are quite far reaching and interesting. Something has gone wrong in the beer department, either that or I am a fuddy duddy because lately all they seem to sell is harsh bitter battery acid in bottles masquerading as beer. I like my coffee hot and not too strong and I like my beer slightly chilled and not too...strong. I like red wine the same way. But it seems like every time something good becomes fashionable it has to get tampered with so that it becomes so harsh only a true aficionado will drink it, leaving pantywaists like me to moan about wine with 17% alcohol and enough tannin to starch a shirt or beer hitting 8% and thus being undrinkable unless you need to perform so deeply humiliating penance and sear your throat with hops.

After waiting a couple of life times with no oncoming traffic the stupid red light eventually changed and granted me passage over the bridge which like North Roosevelt in Key West, is apparently destined to be abandoned forever in a state of repair.

And with that I went home post haste to feed my dog, rub my legs in comfort and have a refreshing cup of tea. Who needs beer anyway?

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Decorating Christmas Key West

I got a comment on the night decorations essay about how odd a reader Up North found it to see palms with Christmas decorations. Well yes, that seems reasonable. On the other hand if one were local literalist one would have to find it odd to see conifers and snow in Palestine.

Nevertheless these symbols are practically universal in the age of television of electrons so we see these for trees and stuff everywhere and we all know. What they stand for.

This place used to be an elaborate palace of decorative efforts but the elderly occupants as I recall decided they had had enough of the effort and nowadays a drooping flag is as much color as one sees. I understand their decision, time passes for all of us, but there it is.

And Mature provides where humans fall short. Bougainvillea is not exactly poinsettias but they look the part. That one can buy poinsettias here like anywhere in the US is all part of the universal oddness of Christmas.

The deflated Chrostmas decorations are the worst. They seem so undignified and their time on display isso limited...

This one needed no inflating though I thought the frown was a bit...unseasonable.

Ah yes, Palestine year of our lord, year zero as represented by snowy windows. Actually I thought this view of a business window on Truman Avenue Key West, year 2013 looked quite passably like a representation of a Victorian scene from possibly the well worn Christmas Carol story set in 19th century London.

I liked this attempt at a recall to the religious sentiments of the season, however it is I suppose up to me the atheist to point out that the resurrection story is a little later in the cycle of holidays. Even the son of god has to be born before he can be resurrected.

And here we are, not Palm Sunday, just Key West...

As a Christmas scene it does come up bit short doesn't it? All thanks to our inbuilt expectations of snow and sleigh bells and pine trees and scarves and thank you very much Charles Dickens at al.

Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas in Key West no matter how many plastic snowflakes you hang on the porch.

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