South Ocean Blvd

I’m going cross country on a Silver Meteor train from West Palm Beach to Winter Park, the current home of my oldest Florida buddy. The journey is 4 hours and 5 minutes. The sky is thick and grey like smoke, the countryside is dry and rolling. It’s January here too, so don’t expect the warmth, expect a strong breeze and cold sun, if it isn’t overcast. Well, the strong breeze is if you are on the water, which is where my mother’s new condo is, right off the Inter-coastal in North Palm.

This view from the carriage window is like nothing you would find in the UK. The orange brush-like grass consumes the ground, with the occasional spike of green. Cattle come and go within seconds. I see the occasional bungalow or camper van amongst a clutter of twisted trees. I never knew so much pale hanging moss could cover so many branches. Now a mile of orange trees fill my peripheral - it is Florida after all.

There is a drive we would always do to my grandmother’s in Palm Beach. It is a drive I could not compare to any other. It is embedded as a core memory since a child, and gives me this feeling of wonderment, an emotion of exhilaration. The vision of dream-like perfection covers the beautiful coast, the monumental beach mansions of pastel purity, gazing out to endlessness. The rich and safe live here. Perhaps they never stay. Most of these villas look empty, but for the occasional bedroom light signifying someone, somewhere in its vast estate is tucking themselves in like any other to go to bed. I look at these creations as if they are sacred pieces of art unveiled for a private showing, just for me.

I don’t feel sadness, I don’t feel jealousy. I don’t feel remorse as if we should have taken another path to visit my grandmother’s little condo. These symbols greet us with a reminder that happiness comes in different forms. That success is always within reach. That we can create glorious things to pass on to friends and family, to share over generations, to inspire others. Wealth comes to us in so many ways. Perhaps it is the romantic in me. Perhaps I look for the best in everything humans make such an effort to create. But all along that shoreline, discreetly and serenely, there are people out of sight getting the view of their lives.