Dear friends, family and fellow sojourners through life,
I am starting this year’s annual north to south travel blog with a reprisal of an unfinished symphony of my south to north trip last year…and then back again. Hopefully you will enjoy these new observations and experiences.
Three Key West seasons ago, I lived in a Meadows “Conch” house (a very specific neighborhood and a very precisely defined architecturally styled home – a plain, porch-ed, horizontally clapboarded, and gabled roofed structure, set upon concrete piers). And therein lies the rub that came to plague me once again. The concept of the raised construct was to allow for air circulation below the building. However, the lattice fencing is insufficient from preventing small animals such as the ubiquitous geckos, iguanas and roosters from making roost. In a way these creatures resemble the old school residents of Roslyn or any other small community. They came to live, and they came to die. And with death come the maggots and then the flies. Since it is nearing Passover a parallel to the ten plagues is fitting. And so, they came…not the אַרְבֶּה (arbeh– locusts) but the flies.
The fleas from the prior year had been exterminated but the infestation of about fifty flies and trust me, it was exactly fifty. I counted each and every one as I squashed them during their assault upon my being, especially during my writing periods, day and night.
No, I never purported to be of Buddhist persuasion, although, I do ascribe to many Buddhist precepts…just not the ones about sentient beings taking the form of insects. The Newton street house was indisputably haunted. Although, Robert’s spell is island-wide…I am sure he must have visited 1406 in his better days. Not only was the house infested by the fleas, the flies and the termites but invariably items would go missing such as seltzer bottle caps and the light finials of the entry hall lamp…never to be found, even after a clean sweep of the entire kitchen area or foyer.
It had rained so profusely during the month of May (2018), that it not only doused my car in a suds-less wash, but obligingly left no water spots after air drying. What it did do was force me to join a gym, since my routine of morning bike rides, mid-day swims and evening walks washed away with the pre-hurricane torrential downpours.
I progressed with the book but was disheartened when I received a 1:30 am call from a friend informing me that a movie script had been submitted to the Hollywood Black List by a Roslyn High School graduate and was moving up the ranks quickly. By June, it was in production and didn’t take too much time for the stars names to be released: Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney and Ray Romano. Which I suspect most of you in the Roslyn/New York area knew with the same lighting speed that it had reached me in Paradise (the lights did dim for a moment). After learning about the story line driving the movie my fears have been allayed. No resemblance to my book. More about the progression of the movie (which is slated for a Fall 2019 release) in future blogs and on my website.
I spent my last morning, packing up the car and biking down to the LaTeDa cabaret/hotel, for a Last Breakfast with a dear writers’ guild girlfriend…the most fantastic blueberry pancakes…promised to return upon my return.
Biking to Love Lane, I dropped off my trustee 24”-wheeled purple mooing bike at my daughter-in laws “bestie’s” house for the nine-month storage. Bade a heartfelt goodbye to Gretch’s significant other, my great big teddy bear of a guy, Christian, and walked the mile back to Newton street for one last look at my conch house.
As I drove northward, I was escorted home, nearly all 1400 plus miles by the presence of a guardian angel. In her presence the miles flew by. My Key West gals, particularly the Aussie, would check in on my homeward bound progression. I gave a typical Judi pat answer — doing 95 on 95.
Less than 24 hours after arriving home, I was able to respond in like-kind and be the angel’s Sephardi…lifting her through and away from the strictures of time and space, to find a safe haven, after sustaining a physical trauma.
Like all of life’s journey’s, within less than a year, those elevating and enriching feelings, would be quashed. More about that later, as I tried to make sense of it all on my 1472 mile trip southward this year.
Copyright 2019 Judith D. Winters, content may not be used without express permission of the author
