Sundry

by Susan Weber

It would make good sense to set out on an eight mile trek to see the ocean in the relative cool of morning. This will never happen. I will occupy my room until exactly noon, the negotiated time of my departure. Normal check-out is eleven, and the tacked on hour has not redressed my grievance.

I go down to see what’s left of—admittedly my second—breakfast. Later, in the elevator, both hands wrapped around a mound of food, I tell a young man with his juice and bagel that I’m stranded here for the day and need a break from people. “Glad to see someone else prefers to eat alone,” I say.

“My mom likes bagels,” he says. He brought her to the Comfort Inn to be closer to chemo treatment. He’s trying to encourage her to eat. I think he might have a nicer story than mine.

I pack lunch for the hike, do some yoga, charge my phone, inspect my route—if I don’t keep moving this will not go well. On the stroke of noon, with suitcase locked in a conference room, my airport shuttle reconfirmed, I enter the convection oven that is South Florida.

It’s very loud out here. The highway’s close, as are Best Western, Hyatt, Hilton—purveyors of the well-managed shuttles last night. Palms and cacti girding the hotels give way to the underpass. My intended route is through smaller maybe shady streets beyond the main drag. I wait to cross lanes of heavy traffic; cars and trucks are bigger here than on the continent that hosted me for the past month.

A hefty man in baseball cap and mirrored shades stands at the corner. After awhile he shouts over the noise, “You have to push the button to change the signal!”

“You didn’t push it?”

“I’m monitoring traffic for the county!”

I push the button and we move close enough to talk. He reminds me of my brother-in-law the traffic engineer. He’s surprised I’ve heard of the profession. When I say I plan to walk to the coast, he’s dubious. I mention Google Maps and wave my phone around, assuring him I’m a good walker. I’ll wind through neighborhoods like that one over there, I say. The sweat on his brow drips down.

“You want to walk around that neighborhood?” He sounds like my brother-in-law, handing out advice. “I wouldn’t walk around there,” he says. “Other side of Federal, fine. But not there.” He lays out a better route.

I’m open to suggestion. Dulled minds often are. I cross at the signal but stay on the commercial strip, taking a picture of a small injection molding operation. My husband worked with similar technology, scaled up compared to this. Ever since he died there are things I’d like to show him. Europe had me taking pictures too.

At Walgreens I buy a large cold bottle of water. What about sunscreen? Thanks, I’ll pass. It will only slide off my sweat and besides, getting it now would buy into the whole Fort Lauderdale fiasco that wasn’t supposed to happen. I stand by my denial.

I press the bottle to my temple as I walk down Federal, nursing a palpitating headache. Here’s an apartment building named R_yal Palm Gardens. The ‘o’ is missing, but so are palms and gardens so I guess we’re good. Further on, the Hitching Post No Soliciting No Trespassing Mobile Home Park doesn’t seem to want me taking pictures. So I take some anyway and no one runs out screaming.

I turn onto a side street, hoping the traffic engineer has steered me straight. Everything’s straight on this flat, unyielding grid. Stucco houses with terra-cotta roofs and pygmy palms line the rutted asphalt. In a parched front yard, a woman hangs out laundry. Maybe I’m not a complete idiot out here without a hat, dripping. Out here at all. Next time I look she’s gone.

My detour takes me south where Sheridan Avenue stretches to the coast and palm trees rocket to the sky. Peach colored walls twice the height of any human rise up to fortify a condo settlement. A curl of palm bark on the grass looks like the husk of a giant cob of corn; limp fronds at one end remind me of the silk.

The wall stops abruptly. Dense leaves brush my arm. Creatures skitter in the branches. From a low bridge that spans smooth water I see skyscrapers on the south horizon, another outcropping to the north. I would like to eat my lunch right here between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. I need to stop walking but I’m far from the dazzling coast.

I come to a stone sign for the Anne Kolb Nature Center. From beyond the hardtack driveway, a blast of droning insects hits me like a clarion call. I could lie flat and kiss the ground. I could leap and shout for joy. I’m too drained for all of that, a thought that makes me smile. My mind holds wisdom after all. She cares for me. I turn my face to the raucous sound and walk.

Photo Susan Weber CC BY-SA 4.0