Surprised by...

Originally Published July 6, 2019

If you have time enough to think about your life, I mean really think about it, how much of our lives went as expected, really? And why, as I am knocking down the door of 50 (Sept. 22 if you'd like to send a card), am I still surprised by the twists and turns that life takes? Just a year ago, I declared that I would go anywhere but Florida, and I would live anywhere but a condo. And I think we all know how that turned out. Well, it turned out that I loved it - both the heat and humidity of Florida and the ease of condo living. I'm using past tense because we have left Florida - unexpectedly. And I'm surprised by that. Once again, surprised? Yes, life continues to surprise me. As I think back on it, there are several things that took me by surprise in Florida. The Heat and Humidity. Not that it's hot, because I did expect that. And, frankly, I'm used to it. I was raised in South Carolina, where 100 degree summers are not unusual. But in South Florida, where we were, in the depth of summer (which lasts from April-December) it is a flesh melting level of heat and humidity ALL THE TIME. I took a glass of ice water with me wherever I went, in addition to an insulated bag to bring groceries home from the store one mile away. Things melt quickly.

Winter. The fact that there literally is no winter in Florida. I thought people were kidding when they said there was no winter. They're not. It's still 80 degrees in December, January and February. Even if the day starts out at 59, which is a bone-chilling cold front, and it only gets to 69 (which is rare) it still feels like 80 if you sit in the sun. There really is no need for a sweater, jacket or fleece EVER.

Right, taken on Dec. 25. Man, was it hot.

I didn't miss winter. That surprised me. I thought I would miss the changing of leaves, the wearing of bulky sweaters, the wrapping of scarves, the layers of leggings and jeans. Nope. Didn't miss it. First of all, there aren't any trees on the coast of Southeastern Florida with leaves. Only Palm trees. So who can miss leaf changing? Second, who gets tired of wearing sleeveless shirts and shorts? Wardrobe is easy and no one gets dressed up, ever. It's too much work. And besides, you'll start sweating immediately.

Election day: Left, Michael and I outside, palm tree in back, sunglasses on, tan, sweating.

Going to the beach. I should say, not going to the beach. We hadn't been to the beach since September. It was three miles from our condo. I'm surprised by that. Growing up, we went to the beach every summer for a week, and I always fantasized about what it would be like to actually live at the beach, how fun that would be to be able to go to the beach whenever you want! Well, turns out, going to the beach when you live three miles away is just as much trouble as going when you live 200 miles away. You still have to pack the cooler, the towels, the chairs and the umbrella in the car, then you have to lug it to the beach, unpack it, slather on sunscreen, endure the gritty sand, then break it all down 30 minutes later when it starts to rain, jam it back in the car, unpack it in the garage, and wash off the sand. It's just so much easier to get in the elevator and ride up one floor to the pool, that someone else maintains. Michael didn't even put on shoes to go to the pool. Sometimes he forgot his towel.

We went to the beach....maybe 4 times?

Fresh Vegetables. First, nothing grows in Florida in the summer. (see The Heat section above) It's just too hot. So vegetable season is December-March. Which is just weird. And, vegetables grown in Florida are cultivated to be shipped, not actually eaten here. Take strawberries, for instance, which in South Carolina and Tennessee are ripe in April. They are succulent, juicy, aromatic and sweet. Strawberries in Florida are ripe in January, and I'm using that term loosely. They are hard, lemony and rubbery. That's because they're not actually meant to be eaten here. They're meant to be shipped somewhere else. Surprisingly disappointed.

I did stumble upon some tender okra in March. Took a picture to remember it.

Orange juice. Citrus, on the other hand, is a totally different story. Oranges and grapefruit can't be grown just anywhere, like corn, tomatoes, strawberries and blueberries, which really just need a few months of warm weather. I don't know what citrus needs exactly, but the climate doesn't exist everywhere. So the citrus here really is out of this world, because it's grown right down the street. Which means the orange juice is also squeezed here. I'm not a big fan of orange juice, generally speaking. But when we moved here I discovered Natalie's orange juice, which is pressed ONE MILE from my condo. It really is like drinking oranges. It was a revelation.

So I learned to make orange marmalade. As a kid, I didn't like it, but my dad did. Instead of putting in strips of rind, the batches following this one had minced rind. That is key. And delicious.

Seafood. After having been landlocked in central Tennessee for three years, I was excited to get to the coast to eat seafood, caught fresh and abundant and cheap. We ate a lot of white meat in Tennessee, both kinds (chicken and pork). I was ready for a healthy turn to lean and protein rich fish and shrimp, which I love. Turns out, trawling for shrimp is banned off the coast of central Florida to preserve endangered coral reefs, so there is no such thing as local shrimp there. And, fish costs more than beef. $34/pound for locally caught grouper, and $30/pound for salmon from Scotland. We watched local fishermen from our balcony everyday. We looked out at marinas full of fishing boats. And couldn't buy a pound.

These shrimp are called Key West Pinks. For when Cousin Kirk came to visit.

Seafood for guests only.

Disney World. When I announced we were moving to Florida, Isabel said MOM. Do you know HOW CLOSE you will be to DISNEY WORLD??? I didn't know and I didn't care. She was ecstatic. She wanted us to purchase annual passes immediately (which are still $900, even with the Florida discount) and expected us to weekend there. Michael and I had no intention of EVER going to Disney. But Isabel has a way of wearing you down, and we agreed to go when she and her friends came for spring break. As Florida residents, we were able to get a 3-day pass for $175, which is half price for all you regular (non-Florida resident) people out there. It's expensive to register your car in Florida, but the discounted Disney tickets definitely make up for it. So we went, and indeed got lost in fantasy Disney World for two days with the (college) kids, and went back by ourselves to use the last day of the tickets at Animal Kingdom. I really didn't think we would go, but we did. And we had a GREAT time. Just us two grown people, standing in two-hour lines to look at animals, staring in amazement at the Lion King show, and giggling hysterically at the Bug's Life 3-D movie. I recommend it.

Meeting characters really is the best thing. They are so real, and they talk to you. Like, for several minutes. It's magical.

Condo living. As well as not wanting to live in Florida, I also did not want to live in a condo. But I LOVED IT. And it may be the only way I live from now on. No yard to mow, weedeat and tend, no responsibility of cleaning the pool, tiny amount of square footage that took me 20 minutes on Tuesday to clean, tiny workout room that no one else uses and was perfect for the three weights I want to lift, and proximity to restaurants and work so that only one car will do. It is possible that I could live this way the rest of my life. Because there's no spring, there's no itch to plant things, and no need to mow anything. I had so much spare time on my hands it was ridiculous. So I spent it at the pool, which was one floor above me. I could go there at lunch. And not care about cleaning it.

Our condo was small but mighty. We could seat 10 at our table, which we did several times in our year there. Right, the Spartanburg Johnsons and Lake Wales Talleys visit at Thanksgiving.

Natives. There are people who are native to Florida. That means they were born here. Maybe a couple of generations even. I thought everyone in Florida came from New York, or New Jersey, or Michigan. And while, admittedly, I never considered Florida a part of "the South" for this reason, the natives really are Southern. They are kind, and gentle, and operate with a sense of history and patience that Yankees just can't evoke. It gives me hope for Florida. Ironically, I don't have a picture of any of those native ladies. They are an elusive creature. Cows. If you say "Florida" to someone, they will most likely imagine beaches, sunrises, and sunsets. Because Florida has two coastlines, which comprise a lot of its real estate that isn't unexpected. But on the east coast, just seven miles from I-95 in most places, and on the west coast, likely a similar distance inland, you'll find mostly ranches. Like, ranches with cowboys on them. Who wrangle cows. It's like the wild west in interior Florida. When I moved here I saw girls wearing cowboy boots and I thought that was the most bizarre thing. How hot would that be? Doesn't matter, they gotta ride horses to move cattle. Many ranches are cow-calf operations; that is, the heifers breed calves that are sent to the Texas feedlots for fattening up. Florida ranchers even developed a heat resistant breed for the Cuban cattle markets. Eat at a tiki bar on the coast and everyone's sunburned with a tropical shirt and shorts and flipflops. Eat at a steak house in Okeechobee, and everyone has on jeans and cowboy boots, with dents in their hair from cowboy hats.

We asked our friend Jim Alderman to show us his cows, right. I don't think he quite understood my fascination with cows, but he obliged.

Parish life. I've heard horror stories about parishioners who make bizarre demands upon which their attendance hinges, or who say inappropriate things about the way children behave, or who make life a living hell for priests. I was prepared, dukes up, to defend and deflect against these kinds of people. But the congregation of St. Andrews was excited to see us, and was excited for our energy. "You're so young!" one of the ladies exclaimed when I came to the women's meeting. Which is the most fabulous thing to hear as I am approaching my 50th birthday. Yes, I am young, and now I will do anything they want. One parishioner brings donuts every Sunday from Dixie Kreme donuts, the best donuts I have ever eaten (Sorry, Krispy Kreme). Others bring fruit, cookies, breakfast casseroles, ham, and tuna tataki when the occasion requires. They are mostly aging, and romantic about past glory days, but present today and willing to continue to be present, searching for God and community among themselves.

These are some of the families we love at St. Andrews Fort Pierce so much.

In the middle of that year we spent in Fort Pierce I went to Israel with my mom and a group of Baptists. One of the most surprising elements of that trip was our trip to Bethlehem, to the Church of the Nativity, where many believe Jesus was born. Not in the church, of course, but in a cave below it.

Left, the silver star on the floor marks the spot where Jesus was born.

Did I just say Jesus was born in a cave? Yes, I did. That was surprising fact No. 1. There was likely no manger, no stable, no inn. Does that mean Christmas Carols are obsolete and now meaningless? No. But I'll probably be adding supplemental verses in my head from now on. The second surprising fact was how we were shuttled through the viewing site not unlike those Florida cows at Jim Aldermans ranch when they're heading to the feedlots. A Catholic church has been built on top of the cave, with the altar constructed directly above the birth site. Visitors enter the church through a 4-foot opening designed to prevent raiders with horses from barging in to destroy it.

Mom going into the church, right. She's about 5'4 so you can tell how small this opening is.

We ducked into the church and then stood upright to a large empty room with an incredibly ornate altar at the opposite end. While it is a church, and services are held there, I think it's mostly a room to organize the line for those waiting to see the birthplace of Jesus. We got there late in the day, and our guides aggressively pushed us forward so we could get far enough ahead to be able to see the site before they closed the church promptly at 5. Because we were so late, we were instructed to walk quickly, take a picture and exit the other side. I mean, like we barely had time to stoop low enough to take a picture (above) of the birthplace.

Left, even if you take out the gold and red Christmas balls (it was Dec. 30), this is still a crazy ornate altar.

I'm sure it didn't look like that when Jesus was born. That's not the surprising part, either, but it's something you have to work around in your head to fully experience this moment, which I don't think I was able to do. Ducking into a church, pressing through the crowd to an elaborate altar, squeezing through a narrow door underneath, walking quickly while squatting to take a picture, it was just an unexpected way to experience Christ's birthplace.

When we exited the church though, cloud cover had darkened the evening sky, and the Christmas tree was lighted. In the middle of Jewish state, even though we were at the birthplace of Jesus, this was an unexpected sight. There just aren't that many Christmas remnants in Israel.

Slightly magical, to see a lit Christmas tree outside Jesus' birthplace. Slightly commercialized, too, maybe. But my romantic American spirit loved it.

Shortly after I left Bethlehem, though, I was surprised to find out we would be leaving Florida. We were asked to make a five-year commitment to the place, a beautiful landscape with some funny quirks, cultural idiosyncrasies and temperature deficits, but a livable scenario nonetheless. So we bought a condo, hung Indian River landscape art, ordered club chairs with coral relief and a couch covered in starfish and threw ourselves into ministry. I say we because this is about more than just Michael. I am a separate, unique person from Michael and I don't have a seminary degree or a collar, but I have a belief in God and Jesus and forgiveness and redemption and love that is worthy of sharing alongside Michael. And I do. It's not my full time job, but I devote time, energy, spirit and heart to it just as he does. And maybe because it's not my job, because it's something I choose to do, makes the cut even deeper. The rector (surprisingly) quit for reasons unclear to most of the parish, and the bishop (surprisingly) asked us to leave, even though the parish expressed a clear desire for Michael to be its rector. This is the third church I've been asked to leave by people who wear collars, so there will be a lot more to unpack about this in days and weeks to come. Mary had some pretty unexpected things happen to her, too: immaculate conception, giving birth in a cave to the Son of God, and crying at his feet as the Romans killed him. That really puts my year in Florida into perspective. We are lucky enough to have a home on the cool Cumberland Plateau in Sewanee, Tn, where we have returned. The days are warm in July, but the evenings are cool and the trees hide the sun occasionally. I have returned to necessary yard work, and have a renewed love for it. We have arrived at the beginning of corn, peach and tomato season and my palate cannot be more thankful. We are closer to our SC families, and a stone's throw from Isabel, who has sworn she will not acknowledge me should she see me on campus (but who also rushed over for a July 4 cookout). This community has already wrapped us in a loving embrace, just as the St. Andrews Fort Pierce parish did on our departure. I have been just as surprised by the rejection as I am the expressions of love and appreciation when we left Florida. I'm surprised to miss the heat and pool, but welcome the cool stone of our mountain home. Right now, I'm excited to eat local corn and tomatoes, but know that in January I'll be longing for citrus. And, just like on Christmas morning, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I know there are more surprises to come.