by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
Urbanna, Va— There are dozens of species of palm trees in Florida and I tried learning their various names. Some that I identified in my new neighborhood were sabal, royal, queen, fan, coconut, bismarckia (noted for its silvery green fronds) and palmetto. The royal palm was my favorite as it grows straight upward in a majestic statement to the world, rather like the Washington Monument, but the coconut palm with its easy to recognize curved trunk and profuse growth of coconuts under its fronds is probably the most popular palm.
There is a huge coconut palm tree right off my third floor condo that lends partial shade on my lanai during the hot afternoon sun (I face west to the Gulf) along with a sense of well-being when the wind blows. This is often the case in winter months on the Gulf, very few days are windless.
I love to hear the wind in the fronds. The sound is very different from the sudden uplift of deciduous trees such as oak or maple back home in Urbanna when a storm races down river and gale force winds reach the trees. Then there is a big “whuff” that suggests one is being lifted off the surface of Earth. As much as I like that sound, I like the palm fronds aflutter and battling gusts of wind off the Gulf better.
Close encounters with nature and taking time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life always heal what ails me. I have never been disappointed when I turn to the beauty of the world around me when in need of a cure. Birdsong offers heavenly choirs sent down from above and wind whistling through the leaves is better than drugs or pills. Then the flowers. Every morning I pulled on my walking attire always mindful of protecting myself from the powerful tropical sun and headed outside for a walk through paradise. I lived in a community of 600 acres with only 500 housing units, every square inch converted from what was originally wild tropics so thick a human could not walk through it . . . into perfect beauty. The housing units were tucked into clusters amongst an 18-hole golf course accented with clusters of palm trees that appeared like oases in green deserts of perfectly manicured grass. Interspersed in such an Eden are 15 fresh water lakes, each connected by conduits constructed at different levels so they constantly drain into each other and finally empty into Naples Bay. The remainder of the acreage is planted in lush floral gardens.
I could identify some of the flowers, like bougainvillea, red sage, gardenia, impatiens, begonia, orchid, canna lily and hibiscus, but I soon learned other native Florida species: wild elderberry, purple cone flower, beach sunflower, powder puff, yellow blanket, purple milkweed, coreopsis, gerbera, Bolivian sunset gloxinia, blue salvia, lavender, Mexican heather . . . the list goes on and on.
If the birdsong and wind in the palm trees don’t heal a discouraged soul, the bloom of the flowers surely will.
My new neighborhood was enclosed by a preservation of hundreds of acres of mangrove forests, which not only offered protection from storms off the Gulf but offered privacy from the outside world. I feel protected, safe and in peace (with no TV!) as if I were moving through a dream. From such sensations came, at long last, the ever flitting and fickle butterfly that so rarely lands in one’s brain . . . what I call the state of happiness.
I loved exotic animals that I saw on morning jaunts . . . the anhinga, for example, a large black bird that stands on shore with wings spread out like a great lady holding her fans, outstretched to the wind to dry off after a recent dive . . . lizards, geckos, iguanas, bull frogs that make our frogs in Virginia look like tots in kindergarten, and, of course, alligators, which really grab attention.
I often thought of pythons during my walks, knowing very well that Florida is overrun with them since Hurricane Andrew destroyed a lab that had sent baby pythons into the Everglades and transformed the state into python territory. The state now hosts python hunts to try to cut back the number of this predator that has no natural enemies. Fortunately I did not see any as I traveled isolated paths near the mangroves and wondered if I could outrun a python.
Yes, I had wanted out, an escape, a healing and after several weeks in Naples I was feeling much better. The magic of birdsong, palm trees, blue water, orchids, sunshine, heady scent of gardenia and eternal breeze off the Florida Gulf had offered a cure. After several months of such rest, I was even writing once again.
(Notes from Florida continued next week.)
©2020
