Calamari in the Orange Grove
On escaping the last days of winter in the Sunshine State, with Italians — and finding purpose in life.
April 1, 2019
Somewhere on a side road in Central Florida
It had been raining in Florida. The glades were full, overflowing, green and flowering. It was a hot day for the beginning of April, pushing into the upper eighties. Clouds were rising to great heights making a truly tropical scene. Large columns of birds too, rose high into the skies over the Everglades.
Great expanses of the Everglades flashed by, as I, in typical fashion drove at high speed, pushing the rental car (this time a woefully underpowered Nissan) to the far end of it’s capabilities — around 100 mph. It was a smooth ride though, windows down, cannabis burning. Neil Young was up at full volume, “He came dancing across the water, with his galleons and guns . . .".
Neil was singing about Cortez looking for the New World; I was out there speeding across Florida looking for my own new world — though I wasn’t going to conquer, kill, lay waste. No, I was out here to find my own new world, to build my own house of many stones.
I thought about the process of change and personal evolution. Like Cortez, we all sail our own seas to unknown adventures and landscapes. The problem I find, however, is that so often we are bombarded by and submit to distraction — we never realize that we are either in the process of change and personal evolution, or we are stagnant and in personal entropy.
This was the challenge of my last year: realization, conquering distraction.
Long rows of orange grove slip past me. Tall stands of Australian Pine dominate periodic sections of the horizon. The road runs arrow-straight. My foot nears the floor again, engine straining, windows open. Neil Young’s guitar cries out twisted and dark, twisted and dark like the legacy of Cortez.
This is the report from central Florida, along the way to the Gulf Coast. But the Gulf of Mexico isn’t the goal. No, this is an ongoing journey over hill and glade, across waterways, and through the friendly skies at 35,000 ft. And every bit is the journey: it’s now, it’s real; I can touch it. It’s real life — realized life.
I arrived in Northport, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, at 5 something Monday afternoon, after a meandering run across orange country. Well, orange and cow country, there’s lots of cattle out here. Miles of soggy cow pasture. With all of the recent rains the famed south Florida psychedelic mushrooms, psilocybe cubensis, were growing all over those fields, all over the fresh cow dung. Their tawny caps gleaming with moisture in the sun. Cow pie high! (Note: Don’t try picking them; farmers have shotguns.)
I was planning on spending five days with friends, Rob and Yianni, at their beautiful Northport home. Rob, being an experienced landscape designer from back up north on Cape Cod, has extensively planted their lot. His gardens are an explosion of color and texture, scent and sound, contour and height. Clump forming bamboos tower well over their single story home rising up to 20 feet, with canes of green, golden, and black. Bromeliads and orchids have free run of the property. Vining jasmine perfumes the night with its intoxicating aroma.
Rob is also a master tie dye maker. Not your old school sixties style dyes though. This stuff has to be seen to be believed.
Yianni is one of these guys who seems to have been everywhere and done a bit of everything. He’s got a tale to tell in any situation. He is a humble guy and so hospitable, serving wonderful meals each night: he’s one of these folks who can take virtually any 5 ingredients out of the fridge and make a four course meal.
Great people.
Over the last five years I’ve really grown to love those two. They are part of a group of very few people whom I know, who actually seem to understand themselves and each other. And in this understanding of self they have been able to carve out a niche for themselves; creating a life in which they seem to do what they want, any given day.
But for me, it comes down to this: no one else is going to live the life you want for yourself. No one — you’re it. No one can show you what it looks like. No one can spell it out for you, or give you the vision of what the rest of your life looks like. Only you can do that, and that’s where it begins — the vision, you need the vision — from inside you. Inside your heart and mind.
It has taken me most of the last five years to absorb that — do what you want.
A foreign concept at best for many, a non-reality at worst for far too many. Oh, I’ve heard the laughs, the arguments, the built up defensive mechanisms people have to keep themselves from considering something as criminal as doing what you want.
But for me, it comes down to this: no one else is going to live the life you want for yourself. No one — you’re it. No one can show you what it looks like. No one can spell it out for you, or give you the vision of what the rest of your life looks like. Only you can do that, and that’s where it begins — the vision, you need the vision — from inside you. Inside your heart and mind.
This is not selfishness, but the opposite; to be in touch and in control of your vision, your path, means you are more likely to easily interface with those around you, loved ones and strangers alike.
Without that we sit, and wait, without realization — realization that you get nowhere without vision and a small bit of effort, that we are already on our journey.
Later in the week in Boynton Beach, I was dining at an Italian restaurant with dear friends James and Pam with whom I stay when I have occasion to be in Boynton. We settle into bar seating, ordering food and libations. I am seated next to an older, very Italian man named John. We started up a conversation. We started talking about life, and chances. He said, “You know, I’ve always just kind of Forrest Gump’ed my way through life,” pausing and reflecting he continues, “In fact, I think that’s how life happens best — when it just happens.” I agree and tell him a bit about my journey. We talk about our wives. John tells me he’s been married for fifty seven years, and I congratulate him, and tell him that I’ve been married for nearly thirty years.
He looks at me and asks, “What? How old are you?”
I laugh and tell him I’m close to fifty. “Jesus, you’re a kid.”
John smiles at me as I continue telling him about the complete chance meeting of my wife on a street bustling with a couple thousand people, in a busy city, with no intent of meeting anyone.
“But it just happened, didn’t it?” He laughs.
It did just happen, out of nowhere, fell right out of the sky and into my lap. He continues to say that all of the good things in life have happened to him, all of his major life events . . . have just happened for him. He says he’s lucky. I guess he is, though I think he’s just got his eyes on the right prize.
Great things can happen to anyone, but not everyone is ready to receive; accept; live those gifts.
I really couldn’t agree with John more as I feel the same. My life seems to, with regularity, just happen around me; to me, often providing just what I was searching for — falling into my lap.
But it does happen the otherway,too. It’s far too easy to fall victim to complacency, anxiety, and despair during life’s changes — shit, just during regular life. It’s easy to get stuck in ruts, and not see the way out, easy to lose the vision of what you want your life to look like. This is when the magic stops.
What do you want your life to look like?
We all need this vision, a roadmap within ourselves to keep us in check with who we are, where we are going, or want to go, and more importantly for me, why we are going there. Like when we were all kids for instance, up to graduating college, we all had a fair vision of where we were headed. And even thereafter when we settle into jobs, relationships, marriages — we have a pretty good vision, but then the distractions set in, our vision becomes old, tired. When we lose sight of our vision we just hunker down, like hibernation, only lifting the shadow off of our eyes to peer at the outside world of distraction. Without our own vision, without our guideposts, the entire world becomes distraction — and distraction becomes your reality.
Think about that: without that guiding vision, our distractions become our reality.
We may be a painter, or a writer, or an athlete. But without thatrealization of “I am” or “I will be” you become your distractions: be that an alcoholic, a depressive, a lost soul, an internet junkie, a compulsive cleaner, a dick. I know this as fact, I’ve lived various aspects to the aforementioned many times over.
Recently I went through one of those periods. I was stuck in a bad place, which I presumed by all outward indications to be a manifestation of the obstacles I was facing. It took me a calendar year to understand that it was not life holding me back, no, it was myself. I had simply lost the vision: writer, entrepreneur, adventurer, creator, miscreant, general maniac.
Two years ago I decided to make a sea change in my life, casting aside job, security, all known paradigm. I decided I needed to close the door behind me, and just walk away . . . from most of the old life. Fuck it. I received the obvious dissent from friends and family; the misunderstanding, the misgivings, the uncertainty. But, I saw the vision of what I could do and what I could go after. It was a simple enough, though hard fought for decision. I made it while laying on a beach in South Carolina, on an earlier trip to the sun and sand. I had no idea how things wouldbegin to change for me.
It was kind of like playing football with the old kids in my neighborhood growing up: the play starts and everyone is running down field yelling, “I’m open, I’m open!” And you better be ready to catch that ball when it comes dropping out of the sky at you. This is what it was like for me. I asked the universe, or perhaps stated to it, that I wanted change, I needed change. Nearly immediately things started falling out of the sky at me. New business deals, new acquaintances, new opportunity — that never would have been realized without my vision; my open accepting of forthcoming change.
My eyes were wide.
I was still talking with John back at the restaurant bar in Boynton. He was finishing up his Calamari Caprese, and I a blackened shrimp and scallop dinner with garlic asparagus, and plenty of beer. An amazing moment was about to happen. A moment that makes me confused by life and it’s permutations; its coincidences.
I’ve been working on a multimedia project comprised, primarily, of interviews with older folks regarding their lives; how they have found happiness, overcome life’s obstacles, and found inner peace. My idea is that inside each one of us is an incredible tale to tell, which to ourselves may seem ordinary and unimpressive, while to another, it may be fascinating, or even life changing.
Now, I’ve often found coincidence can be a sort of pat on the back to your personal journey; a confirmation of your path. Coincidence is perhaps the universe reaching out and showing you approval. One of those indicators that you’re already on your journey — you just need to realize it.
John turns to me as our conversation was winding down and says this, looking directly into my eyes, “ You know Bill, I think that inside each of us is an incredible story,” pausing looking at me, watching my wheels slipping into wonder, “You know what I mean? We all have this story in us, all of us.”He continues, “Bill, sometimes people are put in front of us for reasons, even if it’s just for a few moments, a few words.”
Yes . . . yes he’s right, isn’t he? Wow.
Fucking coincidence.
April 6, 2019
Fort Lauderdale Int’l Airport, Terminal 4 lounge
I sit here in the Fort Lauderdale International Airport at the Casa Noble bar sipping on a cold Goose IPA; absorbing a large glob of cannabis oil after a full week of reflecting and thought, after beach, after glorious food. I sit here writing these words and I fight back being just a bit choked up, thinking about John, and what he had said.
I also think about Captain Rob, Yianni, James and Pam; I think about coincidence. I think about distractions. I think about realization.
She has no way of knowing what I’m thinking, nor that I’ve got a pocket full of whiskey nips, nor that I ate a large glob of cannabis oil pre-flight (traditional flight deck prep). No, she sees that smile, and the shine in my eye, and knows that for me it is real, I have the vision, I can touch it, it is my life . . . now . . . realized.
What a trip to South Florida, what a trip indeed. What a journey. I’m glad I’ve realized, again, that I’m on it.
They are calling last boarding for my flight, time to finish this beer and slip onto that hot metal tube full of sweaty people heading somewhere, or back to somewhere. I hope they have their eyes open; on the prize.
Cruising again up at 35,000 ft. The plane has leveled off, and I made quick friends with a stewardess who has let me take the last full row of open seats on the flight — benefits of a good attitude. This allows me to stretch out a bit, write without bumping shoulders with my neighbor each time I hit the shift key, drink my nips, and well, just be. All good things.
The stewardess sees me smiling to myself as I’m banging out these last few words, she smiles and shakes her head at me kind of laughing. She has no way of knowing what I’m thinking, nor that I’ve got a pocket full of whiskey nips, nor that I ate a large glob of cannabis oil pre-flight (traditional flight deck prep). No, she sees that smile, and the shine in my eye, and knows that for me it is real, I have the vision, I can touch it, it is my life . . . now . . . realized.
-WJM