A Welcome Intruder

When I bought my home last year, a corner of the small yard was thick with vines, a couple large trees, and saplings from the trees. It was a mess, but for some reason I liked it despite a few cries from friends to just cut it all down. My initial rejection to cutting it down was bird’s nests within the entangled wildness, at least three. Plus, I like privacy. My lot sits at the corner of a four-way stop near downtown and across the street is a church and a park. So, what little privacy I can get, I will take. I spent the first fall and winter cleaning it out carefully, pruning instead of hacking. I quickly discovered one of the vines was an invasive vine from Kentucky, nicknamed the alligator vine. Its stem is thick and green with thorns as large and frequent as rose thorns. The roots of the vine run long under the lawn like grassroots. Another vine had gnarled roots that were smooth and gray and formed a trunk of many vines at the base. I trimmed the vine and other branches to create a type of negative space. I sculpted vines and branches so that its form was interesting and sparse, and so that I could view the large live oak and loquat trees in the distance. In addition, the cardinals and blue birds flew in and out, and at least two more nests appeared.

I didn’t give much thought to the vine I was trimming except for my focus on it becoming a piece of art. My pruning must have stimulated its growth, because this year the vine towered over the trees in this space like a lavender waterfall. The leaves were infrequent and light green, and the wisteria blooms hung like grapes. The pods of the flower were like velvet, and when I ran my hand underneath to feel their softness, they felt I was running delicate prayer beads across my palm. The sweet fragrance hovered around my front yard, and the week they were in bloom, I sat in the hammock on my front porch just to be near them.

I consider myself a hypocrite because of this gorgeous vine. I soon discovered they are an invasive species in Florida. They are not yet as invasive as Category I species that alter and choke plant communities, but they could reach this status. My plan to foster native plants in my yard will be stained by this interloper. After a week, the petals fell and now it is as if the clustered plants were never there, reminding me of the impermanence and beauty of spring.

Place Entry Eight

My last day to post about the lake has me feeling pretty sad. Spring in Florida is unpredictable and often fleeting. We’re only a few weeks into the season, and I already feel summer approaching. It’s eighty-six degrees and the breeze is slight. Signs of winter have disappeared in such a short time. Cattail grasses are no longer brown. The wind bends the long fronds into a bow northward, grasshopper green with yellow tips like palms from Palm Sunday masses.

Orange trees in groves on the West and North side of the lake are without their small orange spheres, without February-March blossoms, without fragrance, and all are green. Spring happens quickly here until all seems green. Azaleas are undressing; petals on the ground encircle the base. The coots that I’ve gotten so used to seeing are gone. They stay in Florida until April, and at mid-month they’ve already flown up north to lakes that have just melted.

Today I watch a lone dragonfly gliding across the surface of the water. Every now and again he makes a quick turn to the right or left as if he changes his mind while staying on course. He looks like a miniature, delicate helicopter without a landing pad, although flying low like a bush pilot. I feel anxious about the disappearance of the coots and the one dragonfly. I feel as if I can hear the petals of pink flowers falling. My inability to hold spring reminds me of all other things I love but can’t have near. All things that pass by or stay just beyond my reach.

The large cumulous clouds collect behind me. I notice them after the breeze picks up. They are heavy and moving in the direction of the lake. They look like summer, but they offer no rain.

Prompt Entry Eight

Through this course my time at the lake caused me to put my talk to the walk in a way. The lake has been near me for ten years, but I had been neglecting it. I am grateful for the hands-on approach to nature writing in this course. Blog writing helped solidify and confirm ideas about the natural world that I formed in my first semester. More importantly, going to the lake each week caused me to interact with my writing subjects. In my writings that focus on cultivating home and sense of place, I knew that awareness and interaction with the natural local environment is a first step. A sense of community which can root one to a place should include the natural environment. Much like how setting and place can become a character in a book, this is true to communities. I was attracted to the lake when I first came to Saint Leo by fishing with a friend or studying. Then I passed it by for years without giving it a thought. Now, if I am not at the lake for a few days, I feel the pull.

Time at the lake also caused me to reflect on bodies of water near former homes in my life and how I utilized them or didn’t. This caused me to become more aware of how fortunate I am in Florida to have lakes, rivers, springs, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. My son and I plan to camp near water at least once this summer. As I became more aware of water and its effects on me, which was calming and meditative, I recalled how many water sources are within a short distance.

The lake also caused me to reflect on activities with my own children. If I believe in incorporating natural environment as community and home, how have I shown this to my own children? I quickly realized that I didn’t, and so took my son fishing on the dock and went kayaking with my daughter. Winter at the lake was a perfect season also because it’s a time of reflection and preparation for spring and change. Once temperatures rose and azaleas were blooming, I thought of all the natural places to be in. Observing and experiencing has become a crucial part of my writing process that I did not have last semester, my first semester. How can a writer describe the sounds, sights, smells, and feelings without time in these environments? Especially time that is not really measured which is how I feel around water.

Prompt Entry Seven

The contrast between the Gulfcoast in Florida and the rugged coast of Maine has become symbolic of how my personality better matches a place like Maine. I feel both synchronized and at ease within Maine’s coast much more than Florida. In Florida, Gulf waters are like glass. The sun gilds the crests like crystal, and all is pastel and light. Terns are like white puffins, flying fast and quick against wind currents, young and fickle. The Gulf water is light green like the dresses of little girls on Easter Sunday. Small, dainty waves break into moving lace across the shoreline. Waters are shallow and clear. When I swim in the Gulf, I can see to the bottom. There’s no mystery. It’s transparent. A Florida beach is like skimming the surface of things. This spring, the cirrus clouds hang wide and even across the sky like sheer curtains on a white canopy bed of my childhood, and they look close enough to touch. The bright white beach is like a stage where all is on display.

I prefer darker waters that are indigo and teal. I prefer Maine. The rugged, dark rocks that are varied and irregular contrast with the flatness of Florida sands that have no secrets or depth. I also prefer the movement of the deep Atlantic Ocean, unpredictable, rough and powerful. The rich colors of rocks are garnet, slate, and russet, and they glisten with foggy, moist air. I spent a weekend on Monhegan, a small island off the coast of Rockland, Maine, and most of the mile-wide island was pristine forest with dirt trails. In the morning, the mist hovered in the green woods, the depths of the forest showed hues of green – emerald, katydid, avocado greens. I almost forgot this small piece of land was surrounded by water. The trail ended abruptly and unexpectedly where a clearing of pine trees revealed 160-foot cliffs. Not only do I love the depth of that water, but when viewing the foaming and swirling water from cliffs or rocks, the depth seems magnified. The rocks, ocean, coves, cliffs and fog in Maine are both mysterious and intriguing. If I’m fortunate enough one day to choose which landscape to live in, Maine is a perfect fit.

Fort Desoto Beach

Flowering Kapok Tree

Place Entry Seven

What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye

We decided to watch the sunrise over the lake Easter morning. I couldn’t tell if the sun had risen yet on the drive over, the morning was thick with fog. I’ve been at the lake at least once each week since January. It has become a place where I can clear my mind and water down any problems and stresses, like visiting a friend where conversations help ease burdens and uplift my spirit. It seemed appropriate for me to be there Easter morning. But I never saw the lake. The landscape I’m so used to seeing was completely shrouded with heavy, low fog. Just 100 yards from the water, only the dock and cattail grasses were visible along the shoreline. The lake and sky were erased by a thick white veil that was before me, behind me, around me. I walked onto the dock. I stood on the dock as if I were suspended in clouds, without contrast and without color. I could faintly see where the sunrise might have been in an area of the fog that was lighter than the rest.

The birds chattered in the trees, and the orange blossoms from nearby groves were fragrant in the moist air. Only if I looked directly down from the dock did I see water, sprinkled with oak pollen, as quiet and still as a tomb. The bells tolling at the Abbey across the lake told me it was 7:00. A raft of twelve coots broke my feeling of being suspended in the sky. I first became aware of the water’s surface with the movement of the small, black birds swimming. My urge to capture the sunrise was met with white haze. The lack of what I wanted to see reflected back on just me. And I felt the significance of believing without seeing.

Later in the day, we surrounded ourselves with Easter-egg colors of sky and water and spring. Gulf waters were green and met with a crystal blue sky. Trees were blossomed, and the Caribbean Kapok tree near the St. Petersburg Pier was in full bloom, large red blooms bigger than my hand covered the naked, gray branches of the gnarled tree as if someone glued on origami flowers but forgot the leaves.
The colors we associate with Easter were infinite. But my morning where all was white-gray light, and I saw nothing, remained strong in my mind, more vivid than all the colors.