Monday, March 30th, 2009 didn’t spring out of bed.
The day seemed hesitant about whether or not to get up.
The roosters on Big Pine Key, brought in by the heavy Cuban population, cried out like a sour alarm clock, threatening to spring back to life the second Monday hit the ’snooze’ button.
Deliberations between Dawn and Day were heating up as Jodi and I made our way to Key West. My parents had come out the night before, and we were all staying with a friend, Neil Fenwick, on Big Pine Key.
We all watched the spectacle of daybreak on the drive to mile marker five, where Jodi and I had finished hiking the day before.
It was eight a.m. when we reached the fifth mile of the east coast highway.
Our packs were full of sentimentality and the necessary belongings of weary travelers as we slung them over our shoulders. They rested in their familiar places and the weight was a comfortable burden.
Our last five miles was a pleasant bike path along the edges of a colorful city filled with history, rum, cigars, and six-toed cats. It had all come down to these final footsteps.
This steady patient conversation with time and space.
Our path descended into Old Town. The sea was growing larger as the island shrank in front of us.
Before we knew it, two blocks was all that stood between us and the closing ceremonies. I peered out into the street and could see the Bouy standing at attention. We needed to take a break.
Sitting on the edge of the sidewalk- a place where Hemingway himself might have stumbled past- we ate a snack, and restlessly tried to rest.
Try as we might, we could no longer delay.
The next two blocks went something like this:
One hot day on my hike, I took a break on the edge of a road in South Florida. I was on a roadwalk, and it was the middle of the afternoon. The sun was threatening to smother me. Sweat was pouring down my forehead and neck and back. My feet were throbbing from pounding the pavement. My throat was parched and my water was precious (how often have you found swampwater precious?).
There, in the grass, lay a gift from heaven. A tarnished orange. Firm, yet giving. It must have been grown on a nearby grove, loaded into a crate, and dropped on the back of a flatbed truck. It’s journey would have been quick, and, looking back, perhaps it took the leap. Perhaps it willed the momentum to lead its own life and reach its own destiny. Its character was evident in its rough surface. It didn’t need to be polished and waxed.
As I pulled the flesh of this fruit from its shell, the juice dropped onto my lips and my chin.
That first drop on my dry lips was so tart it made me flinch.
That first drop on my dry lips was so sweet it quenched my thirst.
