No one ever lives in Florida. Not really any way. They may live on the same ground and drive the same streets and have an area code and a zip code that distinctively says Florida but they do not live there. Only a very small few, a dwindling and endangered minority—the people born and raised have ever really, truly lived in Florida. They are the only ones who understand what it really means to be a Floridian, they are the ones who are pushed, pulled and smothered amongst the many groups of people who have robbed them of their home and have taken up space in body and not much else. Florida is not owned by the Floridian just as America is no longer owned by the Native Americans—the cycle of life. Now Florida is dying. Being used, cheated, and abused by the people whose GPS location would say Florida—America’s most southern state.
These people fall into two very distinct yet at times melding groups: the dreamers and the weary. Both who have been tricked and seduced by the image of Florida that is presented on the cover of the over processed and shiny brochures. Visit Florida it says. The sunshine state it says. Images of children snorkeling in pools that are in reality probably not even more than three feet deep, or lovers walking on the beach in a soothing sunset.
It promises the reader Disney World, the place where all dreams come true as if Tinkerbelle’s pixie dust has been sprinkled over the entire state. It is always easy to spot the dreamer, the person who sees the manufactured sun rays in the brochure as a shining light of hope. They are the people who live in Florida as they think it should be, not as it really is. They stand out in their floral print shirts and Boy Scout cut khaki pants. It is both amusing and pity inducing for the true Floridian to watch as these dreamers slowly melt in the heat, wiping each bullet of sweat of their face in childlike surprise. Those people, they think, those people smiling in the brochures—were they sweating this much? 100 degrees, impossible, they’ll think when they look at the thermostat, its supposed to be warm here—comfortable. One by one their dream of paradise being right at their fingertips inches further away as the steaming hot sand underneath their well manicured toes burns their skin. But the dreamer didn’t travel all the way from their imperfect life in Ross, North Dakota to face the realities of dreaming. Instead they hold on even tighter and make a huge event out of showing everyone just how gosh darn Mickey Mouse happy they truly are. They sun bathe until their skin peels off their skin, replaced with a thin but hard to remove layer of cancer and dance in the whiplash inducing wind and rain of the Florida Hurricanes. They will create perfection even if that means squeezing Florida until she is dead.
To the dreamer this is a sacrifice that they are willing to make in order to avoid the alternative. There are a select few, the weaker portion of the bunch of Dreamers who, when they discover that they have been tricked, duped, deceived, hoodwinked will cross over into the other side. The side of the weary. The weary are a slightly more complex group than the dreamers. They are compiled of old men and women, the thousands of people who have moved to Florida from big cities like New York, and the people who had at one time left Florida and had now been pulled back. No matter what sub-category they went it, it is clear from their perpetual discontent that etches itself on their faces and into the actions of their everyday life. Their conversations can be picked out of a crowd with relative ease. Statements like “back in my day”, or “when I was in New York”, or “nothing to really do but…” are heard constantly, spoken in whimpers and sighs and deep growls of irritation. For them, unlike the dreamer, Florida will never be good enough. It is as if being in Florida is a prison sentence or some great pain for them. The burden is carried with them as they sit on the Palm Tran missing the New York train or walk past a Wal-Mart where a local shop used to be only seven years ago. There is a misdirected exhaustion as they complain and complain over and over again about the many failures of Florida.
However, the weary do not see what the Floridian watching them sees—they are not in Florida at all. All of their anger and torment and pain comes from the one unifying quality that all of the weary have—they are dead, or are waiting to die. The weary have stopped living their life long before it could evaporate in the heat of the Florida sun.When the New York man speaks it’s a eulogy to his life, as if the moment he boarded the plane to come to Florida was like entering the first level of hell. When the old Floridian closes their eyes and walks the streets all they see is old Florida, and wonder where she’s gone, why has she betrayed them? They pine for her like a widowed war bride and are stuck in a long faded past filled with memories that will always make the present pale in comparison.The retired man is the worst, treating Florida like it is a graveyard, finding a town and marking it as their coffin. They do not come to Florida in any hopes of a new life or a better life but instead bitterly wait for their time to end.
The stink of their rotting flesh and spirit along with the repulsive scent of the ocean breeze perfume the dreamer sprays to hide the scent of their dying dreams permeates the Florida air.
The Floridian suffers, suffers and cries with Florida. They touch her coral reefs, and plant her oranges, and cut her storm broken trees. They watch the seasons pass without ever really passing and make a grudging acceptance of the blinding sun. They have no expectations and have no anchors that they hold on to but instead exist in Florida freely and with an acceptance that brews peace and life. Even in jeans and a sweater they are comfortable. Even without a GPS they know—they are here.
