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Spring comes at the end of the cruelest month with a warm sunrise out of the sea.
It is a day not marked on any calendar nor forecast with precision. Warm sunrises may come and flicker and fade in sorrow to wintry nights, but there is always a daybreak that is the day of days; there is always a morning forbidding mourning.
You can tell when the day of days has come. The air itself will herald Spring with a hint of warmth in the predawn humidity as if the moisture in the air tingled with a promise that hot house days will come again. The sun will rise in colors of fire, having shed the pale chastity of winter whites. The sea will be softer without frigid nights to sharpen the wave crests.
Winter steals down from the North like a wolf upon the fold, but Spring will always rise from out of the sea.
No, there is no surfing today in my Beloved Florida. No sir.
This is Day Six of sub-freezing night temperatures. The cat actually wants to come in at night. The sea lays prostrate beneath the cruel heel of bitter air, and the shore birds have abandoned us for God-knows-where. Even the pelicans, both the Brown and the White, are reluctant to get their feet wet.
Fish in the ICW (the Intra-Coastal Waterway, aka The Ditch) can be seen lying on the sandy bottom belly up, writhing feebly. Forget pouncing on them with a cast net; the cast nets are all frozen stiff and fail to spread.
I can acually see my breath inside my surfer apartment in the morning, and it's not because I forgot to brush my teeth.
I admit it has been hard to brush them lately as they are chattering too fast to hit with the brush. I've found the best way is to hold the brush steady and just move my head back and forth.
Any of you folks Up North who would like to experience a Florida Vacation in the convenience of your own home need merely move some of that snow stuff in your driveway out of the way, put out some lawn chairs, and set outside for a spell.
Image
Be at peace... this isn't a picture of a beach in Florida, although with temperatures below freezing at night and barely creeping above fifty by day, we could very well wake up one morning to find a scene like this.
Notice the brave beachgoer in a parka and the dog frolicking in the background? We're not doing this in my Beloved Florida. No, Sir. First, we have no parkas, excepting of course for those transplants from Up North. Second, my Evil County Government has banned all animals from the beach, so no dogs may frolic here.
There is a long list of things and activities that are banned here on the Most Famous Beach, and a multi-million dollar police force ready to seize upon violators to ticket them or arrest them as the mood strikes said police force. Unfortunately, no one has yet figured out how to ban cold fronts and ticket them or arrest them for invading our beach. Most unfortunate.
January is the cruelest month in Florida, but look at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro in January:
Winter Beach Image: Richard Slessor
Ipanema Beach Image
