Hunting Pixies

Hunting Pixies, Part 08

The drive to Mom's is uneventful, other than navigating the mind-boggling amount of traffic involved. I used to drive parts of the route 35 years ago when I was briefly living at home between college and grad school, working in the next county over, although I hardly recognize it now. These all used to be two-lane country back roads through horse farms, cattle ranches, and dying orange groves, with almost no cars sharing my rural route. Now they are four-lane highways lined with strip centers and bumper-to-bumper senior drivers. The 25-mile drive takes the better part of an hour this time of day.

When not thinking about traffic, I spend the drive reflecting on the feelings of the last two days. If I am honest with myself, I'm falling hard and fast for Margaret. The butterfly tingle in the pit of my stomach when I think about her is distantly familiar, echoing the same that I had in my early days with Beth, my first wife, and the handful of women I "loved" before them. That nervous but giddy sensation of anticipation of the new and unknown. I catch brief, partial glimpses of a smiling face in the rearview mirror: another tell. My face actually hurts a little from smiling and laughing with Margaret so much. Houston, we may have a problem. I counsel myself that I need to stay out of my head and present in the moment for the next two days: don't overthink it.

Mom is predictably ready to go when I arrive. I shoot Beth a quick text letting her know we're headed their way. Fortunately, I can take a route to get "home" that avoids the Villages. This back way skirts the south edges of the vast Ocala National Forest, meandering through the disappearing heart of old Florida that still exists largely as it has for generations. The road winds through pine flatwoods, sandhills, and oak scrub, interspersed only lightly with rural homesteads and sparse signs of civilization. It's land where black bears still freely hold dominion.

We cross the slow-flowing blackwater Ocklawaha River where it becomes channelized to a straight course, before it meets with the Silver River and its famous springs north of here. The channel is a relic of a prior vision for Florida, one of agricultural bounty, where a vast tract of bottom land was drained to grow vegetables, until the poor sandy soil gave out and fertilizer threatened to destroy the river below. Now the old truck farm cropland is conserved as a vast restoration area. That agricultural vision has largely given way to our new model for "success": where crops fail, we now plant houses and people.

The river would also have fed a canal across the state, before wiser minds prevailed and the land eventually became the massive park where I rode yesterday. Was that only yesterday? The drive is through a snapshot of Florida's past, present, and possible future, all in one. It's a part of Florida few outsiders ever visit, even those twenty miles away in the Villages.

The slow pace of the drive is conducive to thought, and Mom and I spend much of the first part of it companionably silent, lost in our own. Mine drifts, surprisingly, to her. Mom has been mostly on her own for the last 30 years, and doesn't feel the need to fill the void of silence with inane chatter. I like that about her. When she does have something on her mind, though, she tends to share it with no filters or concern for how her comments or opinions will be received. That I don't so much like. The family all loves her, but sometimes that love comes with the price of hurt feelings.

I wonder if her edges have gotten sharper from years of loneliness, or if those sharp edges are what have kept her alone? A vicious cycle at play, indeed. As I think about Mom and loneliness, I recall my comments earlier in the morning to Margaret that I would "choose to be alone," rather than remain in the marriage with Beth as it had been. I need to admit to myself that was mostly bluster.

As much as I yearn for more than Beth has given me, I'm also almost petrified of ending up alone, and that has likely had a major impact on what I've been willing to accept in my relationships with others. I'm sure I'm somewhere on the spectrum of an attachment disorder stemming from childhood, but parents can only be as loving as they know how to be.

I remember an incident from this prior summer. Beth and I planned a long road trip up to western Virginia, "dragging" our daughter, Sophie, along. To ease the monotony, at least for them, I left two days ahead of time, and had them fly up to the start/finish of our intended loop where I would pick them up then drop them off after a week. I planned to use the time at the front and back of the trip to explore some new bike trails along the routes, a solo activity I very much enjoy.

Eating alone is a solo activity I very much do not enjoy, however. I spent the first night in Augusta, and wanted something better for dinner than my default quick service before heading to the hotel room. So I opted to have dinner at a hip little taco place walking distance from my downtown hotel. Several cute, college-aged girls were manning the hostess stand when I asked for a table for one. They asked if I'd rather sit at the bar, and I replied, quite honestly, "not really." I guess that took them aback a bit, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye one of them give me some kind of a "look," before another led me to a table for six tucked weirdly in the back about as far from the lively bar as possible; careful what you ask for, I suppose.

I didn't think much about it, but the girl who had given me the look came back and apologized for making a face, because she knew I caught it. She went on to explain that it just makes her sad to see people eating alone. I told her to think nothing of it; it hadn't bothered me a bit. Not as much as her sincere attempt to apologize probably did, but I kept that to myself. It was an awkward enough moment already. It provided me with rare feedback on how others may perceive me at times, a lonely old man sitting by himself while the world around him enjoys itself. The tacos were good, even eaten in isolation. The sour finale to end the melancholy evening was that they had neither of the gourmet popsicle flavors I'd hoped to have for dessert.

I'm shaken from going too far down the rabbit hole of these dark thoughts when I note that we are passing through Paisley, a dot in the woods that is completely unremarkable. Except for its cemetery, which I point out to Mom. The Ponceannah cemetery is where Walt Disney's Florida pioneer grandparents are buried. As a child, he visited them in this backwoods Florida hamlet decades before his dreams of a kingdom of magic would change the face of central Florida forever.

Past Paisley, we start encountering more development before rejoining a main highway across the St. Johns into Deland, and navigating the traffic through there and the rest of the route home provides a welcome relief to my self-absorption.

We're earlier than I had anticipated and are the first to arrive, so I unlock the gate and pull into the property. Beth had texted back that she and Sophie were going to leave about now, bringing all of the supplies for our Thanksgiving feast with them from our apartment, an hour further east. "Home" is currently a little complicated for us, this property being one of the two.

It's a place we, or mostly I, have come to call "Oak Haven:" three acres of pristine Florida live oak hammock and swamp, situated directly on the Florida Coast to Coast Trail, a 250-mile paved multiuse recreational trail that runs from Titusville on the east coast to St. Pete on the west, which is 90% complete. The trail attracted me to the area when I ran a couple of long-distance van relays that utilized it as a course about a decade ago. At the time, Beth and I wanted to find land we could camp on while our kids were still young, directly on the trail, that was reasonably close to "home" at the time. Oak Haven fit the bill.

It sits on the north side of Lake Monroe, one of the river of lakes that makes up the upper St. Johns, just outside of Enterprise, a small collection of buildings that was once a town that has been mostly forgotten. It was established almost 200 years ago near the site of a military outpost on the Florida frontier, as the US sought to establish dominance in its new Florida territory over the refugee Seminole peoples who had largely fled here to escape that dominance elsewhere. It became a boom town after those wars as steamships brought wealthy northerners up the St. Johns to winter in this relative paradise at a large resort built for only that purpose.

The "War of Northern Aggression" and the two Henrys put an end to that. After the war, the steamship era gave way to railroads. Henry Plant and Henry Flagler built and pushed their rail lines further and further south along the east and west coasts of the state, seeking better winter climes, and making places like Tampa and Miami flourish in ways Enterprise never could. As rail gave way to roads, part of one of their old lines found new life as the hub for the bike trail that I now enjoy so much. It's interesting to me to see how places evolve over time.

As was the case with our Oak Haven. Over a few short years, our initial plan for a simple campsite morphed into building a second house with an eye toward it becoming our retirement home. I designed it, hired the worst contractor in the world to build it, and four years later, had a shell of a house to maybe call home someday. I've been slowly building out the interiors since, and this Thanksgiving is the first that it is 100% ready for guests, or at least 98%. The kids never were able to camp on it, unfortunately, although glamping will now be open to them.

With Oak Haven nearly complete, two summers ago, we sold our then primary home, a barrier island house in Brevard County which was the only place our kids had ever known as home. Our daughter wanted to go to a different high school than her brothers when she started, one of them was off at college, the other was dual enrolled and taking all community college classes, so it was an opportune time to move locally and downsize.

Beth's mother was also not all that happy in the retirement facility where she had been living since Beth's father had passed away several years before. So we've been renting two apartments in a resort-like complex in Viera, a "new" community not unlike the Villages, only not age-restricted. It's worked out reasonably well for all of us to this point.

This is the first time Mom has seen Oak Haven at this level of completion in person, so I give her the "grand tour." She's proud of all the interior work I've done, and marvels at the outbuildings that are starting to sprout up, and Beth's gardens that are slowly starting to take shape. She also comments that I seem very happy, and I attribute it to the house finally being done, or at least almost done. No reason to further explain my glowing disposition.

I situate her things in the library/guest room, one of only two bedrooms, where she'll be staying. We have the king bed set up as twins, so if one of the kids wants to join her in here, they can. That or they are going to crash on our sectionals in the great room, or up in a couple of recently completed sleeping cubbies I built into the small attic space that opens to it. Everyone else will be staying at a hotel twenty minutes away. As I had told Jim, the little house accommodates a lot of guests, but overnight guests would probably only want a short stay.

As we're on the porch finishing a light lunch I threw together from what was on hand in the fridge and pantry, Beth and Sophie pull in with Nibbles, our aging dog, in tow, and a car full of food. I set about helping unload. "Hey!" Beth and I greet each other almost simultaneously and lean in for a quick kiss. Her touch at my back lingers a little longer than usual, and I think I detect her breathing me in, almost as if she's searching for olfactory clues, but it may be Margaret's prudent warning from earlier playing with my imagination. I catch Sophie rolling her eyes and then giving me a once-over finishing with an inscrutable expression. She's my daughter, she's probably banking some pithy comment to cash in later.

She's told us in the past she thinks affection between us is "weird." I've never said anything, but her powers of perception are pretty solid if she's picked up on anything odd between Beth and me. Beth and I are not a demonstrably affectionate couple, but that isn't really by my choice. While Beth and I never modeled poor behavior for our kids, we also didn't model very openly loving behavior. I can only hope that doesn't impact their relationships as it probably did mine, but I know I'm only kidding myself.

Beth, Sophie, and Nibbles all greet "Nana" and head inside to chat and catch up. Nibbles immediately cuddles to Nana's lap on a sectional, where she'll be a fixture for the next two days, I'm sure. Beth joins me shortly in unloading the groceries and other things from the car. "So how was everything?" She asks when we are out of earshot.

"It was good, really good. Thank you, I really appreciate you letting me do this," I hope that I'm not stumbling through the statement, as this situation is pretty awkward. Then I remind myself it's likely just as awkward for her.

"You're welcome," she replies, "and I thought it must have gone well. It's been a while since I've seen you smiling like this." Beth gives me a small smile of her own.

Really? I wonder, but remain silent as I feel a little color rise in my cheeks. I don't give it a lot of thought day in and day out, but I guess my natural expression is probably on the dour side. "Resting dad face" as the kids sometimes say, or "grumpy old troll," as is sometimes apropos. We finish unloading the groceries and put everything away.

Nana, Sophie, and Nibbles are sitting on the sectional looking for something to watch on the big screen while catching up. Beth gives me an update on the logistics for the afternoon and evening. Her sister and her husband flew in last night. Our oldest son, Reid, will be driving her mom and them over to the hotel this afternoon, after they all stop in to say hello. They'll meet up with her brother and his wife who are driving up straight to the hotel. Our middle son, Aiden, and his girlfriend will be coming over to Oak Haven this afternoon. We'll leave them and Sophie with Nana later and pick up the "adults" for dinner and an evening out in downtown Sanford, across the lake. I confirm that my brother, his wife, and her mother will still be coming over tomorrow late morning for the day.

Beth wants to spend some time in her front garden watering and deadheading and otherwise sprucing it up, and I tell her I'll give the house a once-over quick cleaning. After that, we'll start doing some of the prep work for the meal tomorrow. The dog and Mom follow Beth outside. Both find suitable perches on the porch, my mom with her ever-present book of the moment.

The weather is cool enough for open windows, so I set about doing that. I catch drifts of conversation from the front garden as Beth works and catches up with Mom at the same time. Sophie is engrossed in her phone, not watching whatever it is she put on the TV. I turn it off and she doesn't seem to notice.

I turn my speaker system on low instead, syncing it to my phone and starting the Pandora playlist of random Americana/folk/alt country/roots/blues/newgrass mix that has been the soundtrack of my life the last few decades. Sophie rolls her eyes and puts her headphones on. I hand her the cordless vacuum, mop, and bucket.

She gets the message and gets to work on the floors as I do the bathrooms. We bump into each other a few times along the way, and I think I catch her giving me side-eyed glances. As we finish and are putting away our cleaning supplies, Sophie asks, "So how was the Villages, Dad?"

"It was fine, why?"

"You just seem to be different, somehow, I don't know. All smiley? Or just some kind of glow? Not acting so much the grumpy old troll? I figured maybe you found some kindred spirits or something, old man," she kids, but her powers of perception put her awfully close to the mark.

"Thanks," I reply, "maybe I did." Beth and the dog come in, leaving Mom on the porch with her book. "Go talk to Nana, Sophie, ask her if she ever thought about living in the Villages. She'll probably have some interesting things to say about it."

Beth agrees, "Yes, Sophie, go talk to your grandmother." So she does, leaving us in the kitchen alone. Beth cleans up from the garden and has a handful of cut flowers that she starts to arrange in a couple of vases, Nibbles a constant tripping hazard.

I start pulling vegetables and other ingredients out of the refrigerator, spices and oils out of the cabinet, and set about cleaning vegetables and prepping them for some of the dishes for tomorrow. Beth joins me when she's finished with the flowers. Pulling pans out as they're needed. Cutting and mixing alongside me.

We work in companionable silence, the music setting the pace for the well-practiced motions of our bodies and hands work together to create the dishes we'll feed our family tomorrow. As we work, we flow past each other and with each other effortlessly, anticipating needs, ready with another ingredient or an assist without words. We are a well-oiled machine in the kitchen. The meal quickly takes shape. An herb-encrusted pork roast is the main dish, none of us really like turkey or want it for days of leftovers. Roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and balsamic, glazed carrots, tried-and-true green bean casserole with the old family recipe straight from the back of the can.

Almost on cue, Aiden arrives with his girlfriend, Cindy, and after greetings all around, they set to work prepping his Mac n Cheese specialty. Beth and I take a moment to watch them working together and catch each other doing it with small smiles of shared pride.

Aiden and Cindy started dating as juniors in high school and have been attached at the hip since. We were a little concerned about them choosing the same college to attend, but nearing their first term there together, they seem as happy with each other as ever.

As they work on their dish, we stow ours in the fridge, clean up our mess, and set about making a simple charcuterie to snack on. Sophie comes in to help, Mom comes to watch, Nibbles remains a tripping hazard. Beth and I step out of the way. The Red Clay Strays' "Ghost" comes through the speakers.

Beth says, "Oooh, turn it up a little, I love this song. These guys were so good when we saw them last month. Thanks again for getting those great seats, I know they were expensive."

"They were definitely worth it," I agree as I dial the volume up a little, "and the Avett Brothers opening was a really nice bonus."

"I don't want to drink a lot tonight, but I think I'll have a little something now, do you want anything?" Beth asks as I move to go sit on the back porch.

"A tonic water would be great, thanks," I reply. The back "porch" began on paper as an oversized trussed and vaulted carport at the rear of the house. As soon as it was framed, I knew it would be wasted storing cars, and set about turning it into a massive screened porch. The high-pitched ceilings continue seamlessly from the great room inside, and the open back perfectly frames our view of a massive leaning live oak that spreads and reaches almost to the house. Sitting in it is being surrounded by nature, and this time of year is perfect for doing just that.

Beth joins me and hands me my tonic, she's indulging in one of the premix THC cocktails she's become fond of lately. Even in younger days before having kids, she was always far more in control of her drinking habits than I ever hoped to be, so I have no concern that she'll overindulge, and appreciate that she might need a little brace for the evening ahead. Or perhaps to continue our discussion of my trip to the Villages, to the extent that she may want to.