Random Tuesday Thought Meanderings

Yesterday I spent part of the day watching the demolition of a building in my neighborhood.  I had known it only as  "that place on the corner" which housed two studio apartments and a Jamaican Restaurant.  It looked old but the porch which surrounded it looked new. 

As I stood with others watching the swift destruction of the old Dade county pine beams and flooring, I heard the story of the building.  It had begun as a small house over on Whitehead Street.  It was already old when the La Concha Hotel was poured into existence.  By then it had been added onto by at least one addition.  When the era of easy motor car travel to Key West became established in the 1980s, it was moved to make way for an enlarged hotel parking lot.  That move sealed it fate in a way: it was not longer considered historic having been taken from its spot of origin.  In its new home, it served as a childcare center as well as Johnson's Cafe, famous for its conch salad.  Another addition increased its size.  Then, not that many years ago, the covered porch was added.  

In the crowd yesterday were a young woman who remembers playing on the floor, a much older gentleman who remembered the food, a middle-aged woman who remembered working through a hot summer week double insulating the house to prepare for central AC, and so forth.  Everyone had a story to tell about a building that would soon be only memories.  

I was surprised that only the tourists coming by took any pictures of it all.  The locals, however, put that into perspective for me:  "we want to keep the building we remember." 

Last night I was thinking about how much that building is like anyone's life.  We begin somewhere, are added onto, move here and there, facilitate a variety of roles, touch many lives, slowly age and creak a bit at the joints, and then in a short period often pass into memory.  But, even as the lot is cleared of the last physical remnant of that building, what has been ripples outward in community, in memory. 

Soon a new building will arise on that same site, all new and shiny and up-to-code.  But, like a family remembering its loved ones at the annual reunion, I can hear the voices now that will echo into the future:  "go down to where Johnson's Cafe used to be, and turn right," "best damn conch salad on the island," "the childcare place by Blue Heaven," "you know what once stood right here? No?  Sit down, and I'll tell."

They can cart away the debris, but nothing can end the story. 

Finding Paradise

Eight years ago I was in the midst of planning for a long-anticipated sabbatical six months in Venezia. I was looking for time to write and I was looking for some measure of paradise. I found both but the trouble was that when the sabbatical was over, I had to relinquish the paradise part. It felt wrenching. I had come to so appreciate living so close to water, in a walkable city, with constant interactions with other people.



But, I think, that experience of loss (Paradiso perduto) helped me to ask some profound questions about what I wanted out of life. Would a sense of paradise be saved only for vacations or sabbaticals?

I know I began to search for ways in which that paradisical spirit could be found in my old ways. That was a time of painful learning, for while I wanted to change others did not want me to change. I would open doors and others would slam them shut. But then it dawned on me that I was just dreaming new dreams set in old settings. What if I let go of trying to make my hopes and dreams fit my situation? What would it take to try to have my situation fit my hopes and dreams?

It would mean letting go. Letting go of the familiar anchors of life. Letting go also of the well-constructed hopes and dreams which had become caricatures of themselves.

It would mean letting in. Letting in possibilities without restrictions. Letting in options that might not seem like the perfect dream realized.

Not worrying about set outcomes, but looking more for process. Giving up control in search of experience.

So, two years ago we were in the final planning stages for the move here to Mile Marker 0. It was very different from the sabbatical planning of 2001. In 2001, I was frantically trying to put the final touches on all of the details. In 2007, I was admitting I didn't have a clue where it would all take us, but I knew I wanted to go wherever that was.

And when I let go of the outcome, and put my faith in what would unfold in a place where I could again be close to the water, walk to where I needed to go, and interact with people, people of all kinds, on a regular basis, I found something.

I found paradise. It's not a place. Rather it is any place where you can live the life you have found or imagined as being the best for you. Each visit somewhere tells you something about what is essential to you. You go away from each place, each experience, saying to yourself, "Now, I really liked that."

Finding paradise is not about finding any certain place, but rather finding a place where all the things you really, really, really liked while being elsewhere can become the everyday reality of your life. And if you are lucky, you will find a place where you can live and work and learn and play . . . so that everyday even when filled with life's work and stresses you feel like you are on vacation or sabbatical.

Paradise is where the core of who you are feels at home, and only you know where that is.