A Break in the Weather

My sister Kerrie texted me yesterday and asked how we were doing. The conversation was going along fine and I updated her of our site move, since the last time I had talked to her was the day after we arrived here 2 weeks ago.

It wasn't until I said that we had moved 50 feet from the pool before she stopped writing back.

I had told her before I didn't want to talk about the weather or about where we were, as I'd like to keep talking to her in the future. What I meant by that was, I don't want her to ask me about the weather or our activities and then get upset or jealous when I give her an answer.

Before moving down here, I watched some folks I know posting things on social media sites just to get a jab in at those in the colder weather. One of those cold weather people was me, and it drove me nuts. It didn't make me jealous, but it did give me the push I needed to make a drastic change in my life and go somewhere I considered to be paradise. So I was ok with it, working a grin-and-bear-it attitude through the cold, wet Ohio spring. Some folks weren't, though.

So I wasn't surprised when Kerrie stopped texting me. She is stuck in the humid mid-west, 90 minutes from Lake Erie and hours from the east coast shoreline; the closest thing she has to water to swim in is a teeny pool her friend owns over by Nana's old house. I knew this and I tried to answer her questions as ambiguously as possible so there weren't any hurt feelings, however, I'm not sure I succeeded.

There are somethings in life that I have done that people are in awe of. Not huge inspiring things, like winning the Nobel Peace prize or climbing Everest, but out-of-my-mind crazy things, like driving to Miami to go to school when I was 18, or leaving Ohio with a 2 year-old little boy and heading to New Jersey to make a new life for myself. Our recent move to Florida to live in an RV seems to be one of those things people keep gawking at me over, like the others in my past.

I've heard:

"Wow, I wish I could just up and leave everything to start someplace new! You are so brave!"

"You are doing something I always wished I had the guts to do!"

"You're living my dream. I just want to walk away from everything here (Ohio) and move to Florida with you."


I have looked them right back in the face and said, "You CAN do it! Just make the choice, stick to your decision and make it happen!"

Then their faces cloud over and a slew of excuses comes tumbling out.

"I can't. My mother is sick and someone needs to look after her."

"I wish I could, but I own a farm and I can't get rid of it in this market!"

"Oh, I'd never have the guts for that! It's better left for people like you!"

From owning businesses to kids still in school to spouses with jobs they just can't give up, all the excuses are there.

But we no longer had an excuse. My job is portable (thank you to my very understanding clients!!!) and Patrick's occupational skill set can take him just about anywhere there are people, so we didn't have any reason to stay.

Well, not in the "excuse" sense anyway.

Some people have asked me about missing my family. I lived 15 years in New Jersey and they only came to visit 2 or 3 times in that entire time span. Some never came to visit at all even though they were within an hour or two of us. And even when I moved back to Ohio, cousins I saw maybe once a year. My own sisters lived 1.75 miles from me and I saw them at my house about 2 or 3 times in the last 13 months. It was evident time and the lack of distance wasn't going to bring us closer together.


Others have asked me about again leaving friends from where I grew up. Same scenario. Until facebook came around, I didn't even have contact with most of them. Had to build me a whole new set a mere six hours away from where I was raised. Weirdly enough, to this day, it's the New Jersey set that I still usually talk to the most.

So yes, I will miss my family and the few friends we spent time with, but I couldn't let them become my "excuse" to not move on with my life. I love each and every one of them, but in all honesty, I love myself, too.

Most of the moves in my life have come down to the weather. I can't do gray. I can't do shades of gray. I can't do white, either (unless it's white sandy beaches against sparkling blue water!) When fall would come, a sadness would overtake me that destroyed my soul. I put up with it a good long while, but it finally became too painful to endure. I wasn't rebounding in spring and that worried me. When I wasn't finding any joy by summer, I knew I had to do something.

It wasn't until Patrick started to react the same way that I finally knew we could go, but together, we made the decision that we had to follow the sun, no matter whether it took us - south or southwest - we had to go where it was.

And now, when people ask me what the weather is like, I can't answer them. Come November and December, and further into winter, when someone wants to know if we're enjoying the warm weather, I can't say. And I won't. Because our move wasn't the right one for everyone. They might want it to be the right one, but the timing has to be right, as does the "weather" they are going through when they finally make the decision.

And so what's the weather like in Tampa today?

Well, as I type this, there is a steady rain tapping at the roof and the light coming in the windows is dim. Thunderstorms rolled across the peninsula today and we saw some awesome lightening bolts come down from the heavens right before the air and ground shook with maximum ferocity. It was a wonderfully rainy day, 20 degrees cooler than it has been, with bruised, rolling clouds dominating the skies. As we move from a steady tap to what is now monsooning swaths of water pouring down on us, we've taken to loving every minute of it.

I guess that's what happens when almost every waking day is 90 and sunny, with a slight salty ocean breeze coming in off the water...you can finally appreciate the gray skies.

Now who's watching the hurricane forecast again?

Campfires and New Friends

It's amazing what campfires do to people.

For those of you who have never been to one, you need to find an excuse and go, or figure out your fire laws where you live and have one in your own backyard. There is nothing so soulfully cleansing and primitive as watching beautiful red and yellow flames gently lick the sides of rough-edged logs. It's mesmerizing.

When you add in the company campfires draw, often times it's the best of both worlds - the internal one, which is somehow hypnotized into a sedated, ancient comfort and the external one, where friendships are often born and nurtured under the starry sky.

Such was the evening tonight.

After "Casual Friday" in the clubhouse, eating Chinese food and playing games with other residents, a woman we met last week upon arriving here invited us to come back to her site to see a camper sofa she and her husband are giving away for free because it's too big for their space. As we stepped with her onto her deck, the group around the campfire, most of whom we've had only met briefly, welcomed us as if we had just walked into Cheers. Before long, we were sitting around the fire pit, laughing at the stories told and spinning some tales of our own.

Of course, Patrick and I have always loved campfires.

He grew up camping in the woods in NJ, and for him, fires weren't just a chance to catch up on the lives of friends, but means by which to cook food, clean utensils, and heat water for their stay on the mountain. With my childhood being spent at a cottage on Berlin, campfires were precious to us because it was only a few times a year my grandfather would go through the motions of building one. But when he did, out came the fruit pie makers and the smores ingredients. You didn't have to ask us twice if we wanted one stoked up. And when a pyre was blazing in the yard, just strides from the rocking dock on the black water, kids would come from throughout the neighborhood to hang out by our fire.

Some of my most precious moments around the campfire, though, have come from last summer and the summer of 2008. When we had the foster kids a few years ago, we had put the RV down the shore in New Jersey and on Patrick's long weekends off, we'd head down, with my husband building a blaze Thursday night which lasted all the way until Sunday morning. Those were extremely fond memories, sitting around that circle with my son, my husband and our foster kids. If I close my eyes, I can still see their young faces reflecting in the flickering glow, and the joy those city kids shared with us at getting back to nature there on that sandy soil.

Last summer, in Ohio, we put the camper at a seasonal spot out by Salem and had the pleasure of spending the summer with Mandy (Fleet) and Rob Mackie and their kids. Most weekends were spent sitting on their site, sticky smores smearing goo everywhere and kids laughing into the night as they got themselves ready for bed. It was a rare occasion that we'd have a fire at our spot because of our location, but even then, it was a pleasant way to relax before turning in.

Campfires are magical. Even without the alcohol often brought to them, they seem to be earthy and simple ways of bonding for humans. It's really amazing how filled your soul is as you walk away from the deep red embers left in the pit, and how good your heart fills at the friendships you've just built upon.

Everyone should attend at least one bonfire or campfire a year with friends. Even if you just roast a marshmallow or spend fifteen minutes staring into the flame, you'll find life never feels so rich as it does when you're disconnected from the world and centered on nothing but the heat of the flame and the hearts and voices of those around you.

Somehow, even without the smores, life is sweeter when your life is blessed by a fire pit and the company of friends.