Moments

Beautiful sunset tonight. The cicada are singing. August is their time. A frog joins them; another welcome voice as summer draws to a close.

At the moment, I'm resisting photographing the clouds. I've been photographing everything around me for so long . . . colorful scenes, unusual moments, perspectives, common wonders . . . whatever catches my eye. I need to sit this one out just to prove to myself I can.

The cloud colors run from grays, light pinks and lavenders to shades of purple the color of new bruises.

Now the glow has faded. The pinks and lavenders are gone but the cicada sing on under the darkish clouds, mixing their voices with low rumbling thunder from somewhere beyond Alligator Creek.

And now it's night. The cicada are silent again. So is the frog. Lightning from a far distant storm occasionally flashes the dark.

Change, the only constant

Wrong again. Why did I think life on Alligator Creek would always be the same? Nothing is ever the same. I'm not saying things always get worse, or that they are, but they do always change.

For one thing, Thea Bella and her mom are here with us this summer. Thea is now seven and is, as always, a delight though she manages to kick my ass nearly every time we play Sleeping Queens.

Great Blue Heron
& the old man by the sea.

On the other hand, Sonny has been gone since the 4th of July. That changes things. He was Alligator Creek's version of middle-aged Florida Man; a 50 something guy who, after countless misadventures, had been basically living on his parent's screen porch . . . for years. When he got going with his wild stories of the past or absurd plans for the future, whether on the phone or to his mom, the whole neighborhood could hear him. It didn't seem to bother him so what the hell? It was fun listening. Is he gone for good? Who's to say?

On the other hand, I happy to note that the great blue heron and the old man are both still around (see photo from a couple of years ago).  I saw the old fellow on the ferry to the beach. He still goes early and leaves by noon. The great blue heron is a little harder to catch up with but the other morning I saw him fishing along his usual lonely stretch of beach.

As for the squirrel scene, since a hawk got Frida a few years ago, I keep that on the down low, no more all day peanuts. It's safer that way. I put some nuts and seeds out in the morning and that's it. It took awhile but eventually one squirrel discovered them and was my only guest for nearly a week, then it was two, now sometimes four or five come by briefly in the morning.

Evening

Reflections on Alligator Creek

Alligator Creek

Frieda Kahlo's palm tree is taller now. That's good news. Last time we were here it had been so neglected, I feared it would be dead by now. And being taller, most of the fronds are above the roof line. They're out of view but rustle more in the wind. It's a nice sound.

Molly and Swami on the screen porch.

And pops isn't dead either. We saw him this morning. He's looking skinny and spry as ever. And, again today, Sonny and his mom are back screaming at each other. He's big with the, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GAAAAWD! SHUT UP . . . knock this shit off!" He's got a cast on his arm. A drunken brawl or slip? Maybe Mom whacked him with a broom.

God, I'm awful.

Life on Alligator Creek 1

So, life at least on this little spot on Alligator Creek is same as ever. Comforting. Swami, Molly and I are in the screen porch. Is it "in" or "on"? 

The cause of why

Day five - Tallahassee to Alligator Creek - 340 mi.

Swami watching the Ibis

Good to be back on Alligator Creek. Sonny and his mom are still living across the street though we suspect Pops may have died and, when we pulled up, there was a huge flock of young Ibis grazing between their yard and ours. We stocked the house with food and saw some friends and now we're tucked in for the night. Funny, but sitting for five days in a car watching the miles flash by was exhausting. Tomorrow Kristiana and Thea arrive.Woohoo!

Evening Gulf report

They are gone. At the moment they are somewhere in the air returning to Oregon and the very lonely rest of them... sister, Dad, brother, the dingbat dogs, aunts, uncles, cousins, Ms. Willy Nelson the capital "c" Cat, the good grandma and grandpa, friends and a world that needs them and has missed them the five weeks they were here with us on Alligator Creek. The house feels empty, the Gulf feels empty but there is a good breeze here on the screen porch, enough to set wind chimes rustling and Frida's pineapple palm tree whispering. On Thursday we will begin our trans-America trek back to Oregon to await, with everyone else, the arrival of Leo and Frank's new brother or sister but not tonight.

Twilight on Alligator Creek

FiveOWriteO

The term came out of one of those word jazz sessions Kristiana, M. Lee and I were having the other day, at my expense. At the time it was FiveOWriMo. Later I changed it to FiveOWriteO or its colloquial fiveowriteo. Of course, both are based on the now famous NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which has, over the years, kicked a significant number of people off their duffs to take the plunge, resulting in huge gobs and boatloads of words getting launched during the month of November and some manuscripts actually becoming published works of whatever. Even I managed to assemble 50,000 words one November spurred on by the collective frenzy. Don't ask. The deal with FiveOWriteO is to write for five minutes everyday, one day at a time. Of course, a commitment to write five, f-i-v-e,  5 little minutes a day will only be of interest to individuals suffering from writer's block, which includes me. "Writers write, Owen" . Smirk all you like, writer's block is a drag. So, of course, the important thing about a FiveOWriteO is the word "write" because write is a verb.

And yes, I've been telling myself for years to set a daily time and write. I used to tell myself to write four hours a day. When I failed at that I lowered the time to two hours a day, that became one, then one half-hour, which worked until it didn't.

I've been doing my fiveowriteo for about a month now and have gotten quite attached to this little morning interlude. God, that must sound so pathetic. I am embarrassed to discuss it, even here, but now Roy at Blogorahma has upped the stakes and started occasionally posting his five minutes worth (thanks a lot, Roy). His, of course, are good. Mine are not and they are really short but, these days, I'm grateful to be writing at all so, in the spirit of fun and fair play, I am posting this morning's fiveowriteo.

It's hard to make a beginning without a starting point. I do not have one. I start over and over from the middle of nowhere. Is it some kind of twisted snobbery to forego a beginning? A foundation? An idea? The spiral continues its twist. Over and over, Billy (Collins) starts at his window. It is not his privilege alone, something he himself makes abundantly clear. "The poets are at their windows." And I am at mine only, for now, my window is the screen porch.

I am sitting in my screen porch. It is morning. The black birds are at work on the peanuts and seeds. It is 2:26 PM in Addis Ababa. I have never been to Addis Ababa but have wondered about it since I was a child. I leave the porch and wander the shade of its narrow, winding, packed-sand passageways which open occasionally onto bazaars filled with wares and food of every description. The whole scene is ablaze with color and swelters under makeshift canopies and tents and throbs with a cacophony of voices, braying, cawing, banging and music. People look down on the scene from tiny balconies attached to brightly painted buildings.

And then I am back on Alligator Creek with the dive-bombing black birds who, in the time it took to visit Addis Ababa and return, snatched all the peanuts from under Frida Kahlo the squirrel's memorial pineapple palm tree before the squirrels arrive.

References:
Friday by Roy deGregory
Monday by Billy Collins

Check-in

Currently, we are wildly busy trailing after our five year-old granddaughter, Thea. She and my daughter Kristiana are staying with us here on Alligator Creek for the five weeks. It's wonderful. We spend a lot of time at the beach. We all love it and it's the best place to get the wiggles out. Thea adores the water, won't even come out long enough to eat her sandwich at lunchtime. She and Grandpa eat standing in the waves. I swear she's half fish and he's 3/4s kid. Ok. Gotta go.

Morning and all is well along Alligator Creek

I've been doing a lot of obits these last few days so I thought I'd better sweeten it up around here with some happy things. So, this morning Sonny is out in the screen porch running it down to his mom about everything from "bingo to food allowances, calories, getting his own room at a motel, something that's sixteen dollars a day (probably the motel room), roller derbys, how a man can't live like that, taking showers outside from a bucket, carrying water down from the neighbors, what if the pipe breaks?, living in a trailer, how you need water for the toilet, how when you flush it it needs to go out" and on and on.

Sonny's been coming and going a lot lately and I was getting worried that he might have a job or a girlfriend or something like that so today is very comforting that he spent the morning ranting in the screen porch although he did just say something about "going out there" and "work" so let's hope he's not talking about himself. I know. I'm weird but hey. Some things should stay the same, at least for now.

So, we're off to the beach for a walk. M. Lee is currently training to do a solo century, which is a long long long lonely bike ride, maybe eight hours or more in the saddle. I am impressed but it makes my back hurt thinking about it. I did go to the gym yesterday though. Anyway, yesterday he ground out 75 miles so today we are going for a cool down, in 90° heat. In fact, he just came to the sliding glass door of the screen porch and gave me "the look" so gotta go. Pardon me. No time to edit. This is a post n go.

Notes from the porch

Life here along Alligator Creek can be deceptively simple. Days have a rhythm unlike other places we stay. It's an end of the road thing, days marked by sunrise and sunset, rather than the human impositions that generally mark time. And so, a week plus in, and I have hardly done a thing. Again, I am sitting in the screen porch, birds are chirping, Swami and Minerva are here also enjoying the light as it works its daily way through the fronds of Frida Kahlo pineapple palm. And, new to the troop, Molly McGee is also here enjoying the morning.

I haven't talked about Molly before although she appears in a couple of the photos I posted of our cross-country drive, not here but on instagram. But more about her later. I'm still sorting that one out myself. So. The day is far too begun. M. Lee is on a bike ride and I need to get out of here before he gets back. Otherwise, I will really feel like a slob.

Sonny morning

Sonny was in fine form today though, at this point, his morning screen porch screed has burned down to a mumbling amid the trilling, twittering and whistling of the birds. Pops is out working in the yard. He is skinnier than ever and probably more fit. I think he's the one who put our mailbox door back in the box yesterday. It's been broken forever. I tried taping it last time we were here but it didn't stick. Maybe this year, I will actually spring for a new box, if they don't cost too much.

It's day three here along Alligator Creek, or at least I think it is. I've lost count. The only thing that's missing now is the squirrels. Frida's daughter did show up but hasn't checked today. She needs her own name, perhaps that of a Mexican poet. It will be a chance for me get acquainted with writers I don't know because, of course, this will require extensive research.

Literary road dogs and Alligator Creek

Sunday - last day - Georgia to Florida

Forget Kerouac and Cassady. Perhaps, they were never really all that anyway. For this five day drive from Portland, Oregon to Florida's gulf coast, Rilke, Odysseus Elytis, Roy DeG., Galway Kinnell and Billy Collins have been our literary traveling companions. I should say Billy McCollins because, for all his admittedly delightful surprise poetic twist endings, and being a former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy really is the Rod McKuen of the hour. Sorry Billy, but you know it's true. Anyway, their company has been, in turns, painful (Billy's same-ie sameness), lofty (Odysseus's romantic Greek modernism), electrifying (Rilke), heartbreaking (Galway) and delightful (Roy DeG.).

M. Lee, Roy DeG. & me in K.C.

When we got to Florida we turned off I-75 to gas up and found ourselves in an alternate Elmore Leonard universe and stopping at the Sarasota Trader Joe's we entered the alternate universe of "ageless" women sporting every implant known to modern and primitive man plus some double, perhaps triple, implants and lifts known only to aliens and Jersey surgeons before which we could only stand in jaw-dropped awe.

Monday - home - Alligator Creek

The old place looks good. Since we were here last, Frida Kahlo's pineapple palm was (finally) pruned. There was even a young squirrel in it this morning eating a nut! Surely, she is one of Frida's descendants. And, wonder upon wonder, Sonny Boy still lives with his parents across the street. He's been out in the screen porch all morning expounding to his mother about the fat epidemic, environment disasters, jail, death, work (which he does not) and a variety of other subjects as flocks of white ibises fly over the twittering, splashing mangroves on their way to the beach. In the last year, we've spent more time on Alligator Creek than "home" in Nevada. It's comforting to see that something of the world as it was still lives there.

Koh Kood, hello and good-bye

Breakfast with Swami,
Mangrove Bungalow

I'm sitting at a table in the open air restaurant at Mangrove Bungalow. It's got a lovely deck which extends out over the mangrove lined Klong Chao and is a great place to start the day. The river is high this morning but that varies with the tides. It's basically the Alligator Creek of Thailand only, instead of flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Chao moves through the mangroves and palm trees on its way to the Gulf of Thailand.

Coconut boat - Koh Kood Thailand

The last 10 days we've been staying at a family run place on Koh Kood called Mangrove Bungalow. We're paying $30 (US) a night, breakfast included, which makes it all possible. There's one resort on the island where accommodations  go for as much as $17,0000 (US) a night but I wouldn't even want to stay in a bubble like that. Our cabin is 10 feet from the river. And it's a nice place. So what if nobody speaks much English? It gets awkward at times, but everybody is low key and we’re about a quarter mile from the beach so really. What’s to complain about? We point and smile and otherwise they ignore us. Here, in the land of smiles, a smile goes a long way, even when they're fake.

View from the cabin,
Mangrove Bungalow

Thailand has a lot to recommend it. The people are nice and the country itself is warm, colorful, exotic, beautiful and as lively or quiet as you want it to be. We prefer quiet and, other than the ringing of the cicada, (which I love) Koh Kood is not one of the party islands. It's quiet here. It's the kind of place people come to relax. It's a family destination. Beyond that, the tourists seem to be mostly Russian or Scandinavian. We haven't seen any other Americans. My theory is that, other than tours, most Americans are convinced the world is far too dangerous to explore.

Swami and Buddha on Koh Kood

The hard part for me is the food. There really is a food barrier and here in Koh Kood I hit it hard. It's like people have never even heard of anyone being a vegetarian. Forget about finding tofu. We haven't even been able to get beans. The other day we ordered kale at at restaurant and it came with huge chunks of pork. But we spend a good part of every day exploring the island and its beaches on a motorbike which, for me is kind of scary, but also a helluva lot of fun. The island doesn't have any wilderness but it's not overdeveloped ... yet.

Buddha looking over bay

Nothing I say today, no photos I may post, guarantee Koh Kood will be the same even a year from now. Progress. Sometimes it sucks. But, for today, Koh Kood it still kind of sleepy and rural and clean. If this were Mexico, the rivers would be choked with plastic bottles and bags and foamy with soap and sewage. Not so here. They are all remarkably clean. And we’ve biked just about every road on the island and hiked a bit and there is no litter along the side of any road or in the forest. Some homes have litter around them but it's contained. Wake up, Mexico and Central America.

Swami and Buddha on Koh Kood

In the morning we return to Bangkok for three days then we're going to Cambodia to visit the World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat. I have to clear some hard drive space before then. I'm nearly out of storage.

The last of it

Rainy day on Alligator Creek.

There was an all night frog symphony last night on Alligator Creek. It was stupendous but forget about sleep. That giant sprawling tropical plant to the right of our poor little flood-locked mailbox is the frog palace/opera house. It's been raining like hell since yesterday. The drops are so big they're blops. And yes, thunder is rattling the house and the lightning is way too close. It's very unnerving since I learned that lightning can strike twice. I even heard about one guy around here whose house was hit three separate times. Once is enough! Everyone is laying low, even the lizards. I guess it's better that way. We leave in the morning. No more good-byes. I would like to say good-bye to the Gulf but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'm not done packing but this is the last of it. The hard part. The details. Then I'll clear out the screen porch where I spent all the lovely, buzzy evenings of summer, the sweetest with family, and that will be that. Done.

The last of it.

It wasn't much of a squirrel party this year but, hey, nobody died. I stuck to putting out peanuts and bird seed only in the morning and evening instead of randomly all day. A hawk did drop by now and then but the yard never became the big hunting ground like before. And, things being quieter, I had a chance to try out a little squirrel whispering on Dd. If you remember, she was the first one to show up after we arrived. I know. It sounds absurd, but actually it's not. Horses, squirrels, even people...the same principles work for everyone. Too bad I'm out of time. It was just beginning to get interesting.

One last screen porch wildlife rescue.

Mockingbird Arias for Autumn

It's a warm, sunny morning here on Alligator Creek and just this moment a mockingbird, perched on a frond in Frida Kahlo's pineapple palm, is singing her wild heart out. She's doing it all, from "Pretty Bird" to never-to-be-written Arias, one replacing the other with equal speed. Today is the Autumn Equinox, that brief moment when light and dark are equal. Now the days grow shorter and the night long.

Snoring bird

A bird is snoring somewhere out along Alligator Creek tonight. It's a soft chittering sound. Maybe birds don't snore. I don't know. I don't care. In my mind's eye I see a bird napping in the mangroves, head resting on its chest, beak nestled in its feathers, snoring away under the remnant of this year's Harvest Moon. Even two nights later, it was about the biggest, orangest moonrise I've ever seen. I wonder if birds dream about the moon.

Blasted

19:30 GMT
Just now Swami, Minerva and I had to come in from the screen porch. Rain is getting my laptop wet. This is only the second evening since getting to Florida that we've been inside. I don't like it a bit I can't afford to ruin another computer.

21:59 GMT
I'm posting this from my phone. It's very quiet around the house now. M. Lee is getting up early to do a Metric Century so he's already sleeping. Swami, Minerva and I are still inside. The storm fried the router and the modem so no internet. It was fast and furious.

A low pressure center settled over Cancun, squished the topical storm brewing there and spewed it out over the Gulf, or so says Weather Underground. A wisp of that must have made it up to Alligator Creek. Something did anyway. And it dropped two, count them.....ONE.....TWO..... bolts of lightning right on our little cracker shack. Holy FUCKING GOD!

The house is on stilts and the lightning dropped below the upper level. I swear I saw it possess my computer screen for a moment. I know that's impossible but my new theory about lightning is that, like rainbows, it has an aura surrounding it as well as being the "thing" we see with our primate vision. Anyway...TWO...

BAM!!! BAM!!!

My teeth could have exploded right out of my head and it wouldn't have shocked me more. There was only enough time after the first blast to babble and huddle together before the second bomb exploded somewhere between us and Frieda's Pineapple Palm (which touches the house). Did I say Holy Fucking God?

And then it was over but for the rumbling and the rain. Now frogs are happily croaking outside in the lagoon otherwise known as the lawn.

Sunday bull session

Billy the Kid
via wikipedia

It's a lovely day here on Alligator Creek, breezy and hot, about 90° on the screen porch. I have the fan on. I'm drenched but I don't care. I guess I'm acclimated. Across the street, Sonny Boy is holding forth on his screen porch in that booming, gravely voice of his. I catch snippets.

"You gotta have heart. That's what I put on the internet too. You gotta have heart."

"......my daughter, her own cousin says, what a beautiful Italian woman."

He's talking to his dad, who occasionally injects a nearly inaudible but definitely gravely grunt or comment of his own. I can't see them. Palm fronds block the view, as does their screen and the perpetual shadow, as their porch faces north. But I can hear bits of what he's saying over the whir of my fan, the wind in the palms, little seaplanes buzzing up and down the coast, cars whooshing on the nearby road that skirts the ICW... bits and pieces....

"I read the whole biography of Billy the Kid the other day... Died on July 14th, 1881. 21 years-old. Blue-eyed. Weighed 120 lbs... The first time he went to jail he escaped... Went to Arizona on a horse, alone.... Went to New York on a horse, alone.... Mexico, on a horse.... alone.... before he was 21.... He was in the desert by himself.... He had to go to to the Indians.

He has (Yes. He said "has") some brains.... Five hundred miles of desert.... You know his mother was an immigrant... Came over on a boat from Ireland... His mother died when he was 15.... 15... so he started runnin around... got in trouble, whatever... his step-father didn't want nothin to do with him so he went out west... He looked at Florida and said "what the hell?"

Later he switched to personal reflections.

Kewpie doll
via wikipedia

"They had a kwepie doll, know what I mean?... I lost everything I had....bowls, furniture, my gun, everything.... Left me in a little bit of shit.... But anyways, I was packing up to leave, the house was full of crabs and fleas. I had no vehicle, no money, my social security check was cut off..."

Then Mom returned from the ravioli run.

"What the hell is this? Who wrecked this chair? What the hell happened here?"

 Sonny Boy,

 "I put tape over it."

 And thus ended the Sunday bull session.

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And, besides doing this post and going to the beach for while today, I redesigned my poetry site, annasadhorse, and added a new piece titled Music Theory.

Beach walk

Gulf sunset

There's a ray of light when the setting sun hits a certain declination on the horizon. It only lasts a moment. Some say there's a green flash. I've never seen it. But just now, light from the sun setting out over the Gulf suddenly, for a moment, flared orange through the tops of the trees along Alligator Creek casting the world and the screen porch under its spell.

We took the South Venice ferry to Manasota Key this afternoon. It's a short ride across the Intracoastal Waterway but the only direct access to Sunset beach. Otherwise, its a long walk on the shore to get there so it's a pretty quiet spot. The ferry pass comes with the house we're renting. It's a cool little boat. We took it a lot when we were here a couple of summers ago but today was only our second trip this time, even though we've already been here a month. It has been unseasonably rainy, torrential and unpredictable, so we've been driving to other beaches. However, today we thought we could beat the rain. We figured wrong.

Sea turtle nests and blooming century plants

From the ferry landing, a wooden walkway goes through the mangrove and palm forest to the Gulf side of the Key, From there we walked north and were so engrossed looking for shark's teeth (both of us) and heart rocks (me), being amazed at all the sea turtle nests staked and marked by the Turtle Patrol, what storm surges have done to the shore, commenting on birds, admiring the giant pelican drying her wings in the wind in the top of a tree, admiring the jungle of native foliage and trying to not stare at the gay men in teeny thongs who make this otherwise deserted stretch their rendezvous that we failed to notice the giant, black storm clouds gathering behind us. When we did, we were a couple of miles away from the ferry.

We started back and the wind came up, and with it stinging sand, so we bent our heads down and pushed into it, pulling our hats further and then further over our eyes. Next came the rain, in tropical torrents. By the time we got back to Sunset beach it was deserted. We made for the walkway and hurried across the Key back to the ferry landing. No boat, no phone, nowhere to go, so we sat on the walkway in the rain.

This may all sound very bad but actually it wasn't. I went back to the Gulf to see once more the beach shrouded by the squall. For this moment, this storm, there was nothing and no one (well, except me) in the gray and rain marring the solitude. Empty. And baby turtles gestating in their eggs deep within the sand by the sea. The way it always was. The beach and I were wild again. I stood watching sheets of rain whipping westward over the Gulf, blown by offshore winds, then I went back up the stairs and across the Key to the east, to wait with M. Lee for the ferry, which did come back for us after all.