The Forgotten Coast

From the Archives

This writing originally appeared as a post on Facebook in June of 2020. It was part of a series I wrote titled The Covid Diaries.

Politics.  First, straight up y’all – this is Trump Country.  MAGA roots run deep.  See pic – they’ve got a passion for it here – the aviator glasses make it appear that’s actually Uncle Joe as you cruise by.

Getting here.  It’s an 8.5 hour dry and surprisingly over half is back roads with almost no stop lights.  GPS will actually take you off the secondary roads on to true backroads, somewhere around the Florida Georgia line we turned on to a dirt road for four miles.

Covid.  Not too much concern down here as the Gulf Breeze and humidity can’t be helpful for viral spread.  We did make the questionable decision to go out for dinner the night we arrived.  Not many options but plenty of people out.  We found a Mexican restaurant – definitely no masks, definitely no distancing and definitely at 100% capacity.  The mood seemed festive with the Latino waiters the most excited – happy to be back to work?  The food was actually pretty good but I’m not sure I would say it was to die for.  If we trust the numbers, and probably we shouldn’t, we can be reassured about the fact that there’s only been one positive test here in Gulf County.

History. 

Recent.  In 2018, the storm surge lifted the cottage we’re in off its foundation. Then a tree fell on the roof keeping it from floating away.  It’s memorialized - see pics. 

Remote. Less than a hundred feet away there are about 10 bricks in the ground, part of the original foundation of a confederate war era saltworks.  Apparently, the Union army bombed and sent a landing party to destroy the operation, a major factor in turning the tide of the Civil War.  Apparently, a protein-less army is a fairly ineffective one.

The beach is long and quiet, but with occasional drama.  A long, action-less but somehow mesmerizing drama played out over two hours.  A mix of Wicked Tuna and Deadliest Catch, minus the editing – a lone fisherman holding a taught rod as several boys and two more men surrounded him, waiting to see what might emerge.  At last the creature started to break the surface near shore and the team was able a pull a 4 to 5 foot, nurse I presume, shark onto the sand.  Clearly not a time for social distancing as most everyone on the beach gathered around as the fisherman had his picture taken with the catch and the fish, denied of his breath for only few moments, was returned to the sea.

For better or worse, here, for one who thinks about these things, the now marginalized issue of climate change is ever present.  Hurricane Michael had some success in culling the housing stock here but much is rebuilt and new homes are going up.  A large portion of the pine forest appears dead, the result of saltwater inundation from storm surge?  Where the peninsula turns 90 degrees, the beach is gone and a massive pile of huge boulders holds back the surf.  In front of the homes an 8’ or so high dune has been created, in back of a few houses it’s been uniformly landscaped with sea oat starts.  Millions spent to ward off the next storm? 

Rethinking low point.  After reading the New York Times full breakdown of George Floyd’s roughly 18 minute interaction with MPD, I happened to go back and read my previous post where I stated I really can’t identify a low point since the pandemic began.  I was a bit taken back at what seemed like my own callousness – could I justify it as I’ve titled these words a diary, when obviously it’s a social media post masquerading as diary.  And, when you break it down, the sequence of events and the haunting image of Officer Chauvin, knee on George Floyd’s neck, for minutes on end, the officer’s hand in his pocket, the relaxed position, the smug, unconcerned look on his face clearly represents the depth of our inhumanity.  What is really happening here?  And, true to its character, my mind immediately started to reframe this event.  Was this the image that most thoroughly, and most finally, demonstrated the way in which this culture, this part of our humanity, works so hard to convince us that we are separate.  That a white man can strangle the life out of a black body while witnesses stand powerlessness and said white man can be so unwavering and certain in his brutality.  Can this aspect of humanity be reframed?

And, how has this moment, in which this gut-wrenching event occurred, become all about breath?  Suddenly, as we, the collective, are becoming laser focused on the fragility of knowing there is certainty in our ability, our freedom, to draw the next breath.  Is it not the same air we breathe, do we not breathe with the same apparatus, the lungs – have we not all felt life-giving energy of a deep breath, vital prana – does the earth not breathe as one organism, one lung?  Is this the crisis to lead to a deep understanding that we are not separate – that there is a darkness to wrestle, but it is does not manifest itself in darker skinned bodies, this is a delusion, it is not external but exists inside of us.  Is that not what we see in Officer Chauvin’s smug expression – an attempt to control what we fear deep inside ourselves, the darkness, the trauma?

So it is in this moment that I begin feel most untethered, whatever grounding the many benefits of the quarantine have offered evaporate and I’m left scrolling – for resolution, validation, hope, retribution – fleeting sentiments in futile activity.  What will be the catalyst catapulting us into the full knowledge that we are one – a protest, a poem, some way we find to purify our own heart? 

And oddly, in some ways I’ve even been granted more privilege, even more comfort by the tragic and unjust of death of George Floyd, not to mention the 400 year history of violence and oppression as now it’s even harder to be bothered by some petty annoyance, to not truly see how I privileged I am – gliding along a gulf bay – turtles, rays, sharks visible in the clear waters, sunlight glimmering – is it ok for me to put this struggle aside and truly feel gratitude for this moment – to feel gratitude for a white body- for the circumstances that led me to this moment?  I can or I’m able.

Is it cliché to say that we “are made for this moment?”  Maybe it is more true that this moment will make us.  That we will breathe deep into our belly, that the breath will be full, it will enliven and inspire us, we will expand and this will allow space for the heart, inside the lungs, to fully open.  At that moment will we know that we are one?

And that was my reframe.  Or, a start at least.