Still waters ran deep within the depths of my soul as I left my house in the early morning. The sun had not yet risen. I loaded my beach chair and a cooler in my car and cranked the engine on. I passed by the CVS on South Dixie Highway by Mariposa Court to pick up some ice and some drinks. I loaded my cooler and then headed to South Beach. I have been navigating the uncharted waters of a life that seem to have gone wrong and seem to be going nowhere. I am not young, but neither am I old. I am, as Dante would say, midway through my life where I find myself within a dark forest of troubles. I live in what can be best described in a city that has raised the art of dysfunction to an absurd level of perfection where everyone is angry and resentful of everyone else and those that have look down contemptuously at those that have not. What is a man to do when he is lost in a vast ocean of artificiality where your value is determined by your job, your house and the type of car you drive? I was sick of it. I was sick of it all and I wanted to get away from it all. Hell is the absence of reason, and I was in Hell.
I headed to South Beach. At five o’clock in the morning, the vampires are winding down at the clubs. They had just spent the night partying, snorting lines of cocaine, downing Red Bulls with vodka, and dancing until their clothes became soaked with sweat. They spill out on the street, stumbling over themselves to grab a late night early morning slice of pizza before going home to pass out. I saw them trip over homeless beggars on the street who are sleeping on nothing more than a newspaper or holding out a hand for some spare change to get them through the day; indifferent to the suffering that was all around them, hailing down Ubers and Lyft drivers eager to make a quick buck and hoping that one of these vampires doesn’t puke in the back seat.
I crossed the McArthur Causeway. It was still dark, and the first cruise ships were making their way back into the Port of Miami. I saw them making their turn in the turning bason by Bayfront Park. At that time, the crew are busy going to their maneuvering stations in preparations for docking, or getting breakfast ready before the organized chaos of disembarkation begins. I imagined there were passengers who were hanging out in the discos and other public spaces trying to grasp on to the last moments of their cruise before being forced to disembark and return to the reality of their lives. No one is happy and everyone is tired and exhausted.
As I got off the Causeway, I tuned right on Ocean Drive towards South Point Park, away from the crowds that were already spilling out from the clubs. The sun had not risen yet. I grabbed my chair and my large cup of coffee that I had brought from home and headed to the beach. I sat at the water’s edge There was a couple making out on the beach. They laid down on blankets and were holding each other tightly and kissing each other passionately. I tried to ignore them, but it was impossible to do so. I heard one of them giggle, the girl who must have realized that I was checking them out. I turned away; they went back to their embraces and kisses; and I looked out over the ocean towards the horizon waiting for the sun to rise as it has done many times over the years before I was born, in my lifetime and will continue to rise long after I am dead. I sat there thinking about every sunrise I had ever seen over the ocean. What is so special about watching a sunrise? Even still, what is so special about a sunrise on a beach with the city behind me? I found my life to be so overwhelming that sometimes there is nothing more to be done but to go to the beach and sit there in silence.
The sun was starting to peer above the horizon. I started to take off my t-shirt and take out a pair of swim goggles I had in my pocket. I got out into the water and started to swim to a buoy that was floating about a hundred yards off the beach. I swam towards it, keeping a steady pace. It was hard to see the bottom. It was still too dark to see anything. As I swam further out, the light in the sky got brighter and brighter. The colors began to show; dark red, blood orange, and then yellow. Just as I reached the buoy, the sun emerged over the horizon. I sat there holding on to the buoy watching the sun rise further and further higher over the horizon. I took one large breath of air and then plunged myself to the bottom. I was in twenty feet of water, and I used the anchor chain of the buoy to pull myself to the bottom. When I got to the bottom, I sat crossing my legs and just stared up at the surface.
There was nothing at the bottom except the ripples of waves etched onto the sand. I sat there meditating for a moment trying to empty my mind of the troubling thoughts that brought me out to the beach in the first place. I lost my parents a few years earlier, I had a heart attack, there was a pandemic, a nervous breakdown and then I lost my job. I started Uber driving to make ends meet but even that in itself was not enough. I thought of every trial and tribulation eating away at me, eating away at my faith. I opened my eyes to find a baby barracuda staring at me. It came from nowhere. Was it reading my thoughts? Was it sensing my emotions? It started to turn and swim around me. I was wondering if it had intentions to attack me or just leave me alone. I didn’t move a muscle and tried to stay as still as possible. Eventually, it swam away, and I made my way to the surface back to the buoy. My head broke the surface of the water just as I was running out of air. I held on tightly to the buoy until my heart was calm enough to make the swim back to shore. Once I reached the shoreline, I collapsed exhausted onto the sand.
I picked up my chair and headed to the freshwater shower that was by the entrance of the beach. The cool refreshing water felt good against my skin. As I stood under the pulse of the water, I looked far off into the distant horizon. The sun was full up and families started arriving at the beach setting up their tents and their chairs for a full day of sun and fun. I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the car. I didn’t bother to put on my shirt or my flip flops on. I just opened the car and laid a towel on the seat so that it wouldn’t get wet. I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and got into the driver’s seat. I opened the widows and the sunroof and started pumping some Dead tunes on the radio.
The city around me soon faded and once I had crossed 177th avenue southwest past the Miccosukee gaming hall and resort, I found myself out in the middle of the Everglades. The Everglades are as vast as the ocean I had left behind on Miami Beach. I saw huge swaths of grass for miles around. In that vast emptiness, I reflected on the irony of my life. In a room full of people, I could be the loneliest person on the face of this earth and yet in the vast emptiness of the ocean, in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades, with not a living soul for miles around, my feelings of loneliness melt away and I find myself connected to something greater than myself.
As I drove west across the Tamiami Trail, I took the time to stop along the way and check out the canals. I looked in and saw a bunch of fish swimming around, mostly alligator gar. Just like earlier, one stopped, and our eyes met. I wonder what it was thinking. Additionally, there were gators nearby, floating on the surface of the water and cooling off in the hot Florida sun. As I looked over the canals and the surrounding bush, the uncharted waters of my life didn’t seem so unchartered after all. All of the chaos and confusion of Miami seemed to melt away in an afterthought.
In the beginning of time, when God parted the waters and created the heavens and the earth, he created a second garden of Eden far away from the original one and he made sure that he peopled it with humans created in his image and likeness that would live in harmony with his second creation. Eventually, the children of the old world and the new world collided with each other, but God made sure that his second creation was hostile enough for anyone to spoil it. So was it then, as it is now as I contemplate the waters of the Everglades that surround me.
I kept driving west, towards Marco Island and Naples. I wasn’t in any great rush. I kept my speed at forty-five miles per hour allowing myself to absorb the emptiness that surrounded me and the lushness that loomed over me. As I entered Big Cypress National Forest, I lost myself amongst the trees. I felt the breeze blowing through their branches and their voices whispering in the distance mixed with the buzzing of insects. But for that buzzing, there was nothing but silence and the music that was coming out of my radio.
I stopped by and grabbed a bite to eat at a gas station. As I was grabbing my hotdog, I heard an angelic voice of a young girl say, “Hey mister, can you spare some change?” Who was she? Was she the Eve of this paradise? She looked as if she was in her early 20s; blonde, long hair, stick thin, with a halter top and bell-bottom blue jeans. She carried a backpack. She looked out of place and out of time, more of a hippie of the sixties than a modern millennial. I asked, “Are you hungry?” She shook her head. “Where you headed to?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “Runaway?” I asked. Again, she shook her head. I got her a sandwich and a soda. She gulped it down as if she had not eaten in days. “Want a lift?” I asked. She shook her head yes.
There was silence for a while and then I asked her where she was from and why she was running away. Seems that she was tired of her life at home. Her father was dead; her mother was an alcoholic and her mother’s boyfriend were abusive to her and her mom. She told me that she really didn’t feel like she fit in anywhere and was just grateful that she had left a toxic environment. She said that she wanted to just go drifting for a while until she could find a place to settle down. As I heard her story, I suddenly reflected on the fact that as bad as my life was, I really was blessed in many respects and yet there was a dark cloud that hung over her.
We kept driving west and eventually hit Naples. It was midafternoon, and the sun was starting to set in the west. The young girl asked, "What are you doing out here?" I told her that I had seen the sunrise over Miami Beach and that I wanted to go see the sunset in Naples. We drove into Delanor Wiggins State Park. The park seemed empty except for the few kite surfers and families that were there. I found a place close to the shoreline. The young girl had gone to the bathroom and changed into a bikini and went swimming. I lay on the beach taking in the sun and listened to the sound of the waves. Flying above me were gulls playing in the wind. I saw the young girl get into the water. It seemed as if it was the first time she had ever been to a beach or seen the ocean. Coming over to me she sat down on the sand and finally I worked up the nerve to ask her a question, “Are you an angel?” I asked. It sounded like a silly question. “Maybe I am,” she replied, “though I doubt that there are any angels with alcoholic moms that date abusive boyfriends.”
“You never know,” I answered, “there are angels that surround us all the time and we hardly seen them or sense their presence when they are around.” She took a cigarette out of her pack and offered me one and we sat there together smoking and admiring the sun far-off in the distance. She leaned over and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. “What was that for?” I asked. She looked at me and she said, “just a thank you and you seemed to need it.” She picked up her stuff and walked off to I don’t know where. I looked up at the sky wondering if God was playing any tricks on me.
The sun started to sink in the sky. It didn’t hurt to look at it. The sky turned fire orange. As the sun dipped below the horizon, time seemed to have sped up. The colors that were once so brilliant started to fade and yield to the night. I sat there on the sand along the seashore on the Gulf Coast. In the space of the day, I saw the sun rise above the ocean and then followed the sun to the west where I saw it set over the ocean.
Before the sun completely set, I got into the water. I sat there thinking that there are still waters that run deep in my soul, and I am surrounded by the enormity of a great ocean as the earth is surrounded by the enormity of the universe and I, just a mere mortal am but a tear in the rain. I thought back on the enormity of the day; the range of emotions I have endured; what brought me to this point. I thought about the fish, the gators, the young girl who seemed to be running away from the world while the world was catching up to me. In the distance, I saw dolphins playing in the water chasing after the fish. One came up to me, lifted his head above the water and then smiled and swam off. The sun had set below the horizon but there was no green flash. Instead, there was a park ranger coming over to remind me that the park was closing and that I would have to leave soon. I really did not want to leave. I wanted to stay there on the sand and look up and the starry sky.
I got back into my car and started back to Miami. I stopped by at the Cracker Barrel on I-75 before Alligator Alley. I stared at my food as if it was an illusion of something that people wish existed but never did. It seemed like the whole day was an illusion of vampires, sunrises, the ocean, fish, alligators, angels and sunsets. My dinner seemed like the bucket of cold water dumped over me to shock me back to the reality of this world. I thought about the ocean and its enormity, its emptiness, becoming at once overwhelmed, terrified, embraced, chewed and spitted out like life.
As I drove along Alligator Alley, I watched cars speed by me at a hurtling pace and not a trooper in sight until at last I came up on an accident on the side of the road. I saw a bunch of cars with serious damage all banged up on the side of the road. One in particular was a convertible red Corvette. I saw a guy with his hands buried in his face as the trooper seemed to be reading his rights. On the side of the road was a blue tarp and sticking out from under the tarp were a pair of legs in bell bottoms. I shuddered to think of who it was and prayed it was not the girl I had earlier taken to the beach. The guy was placed in the squad car and as I drove off away from the scene of the accident, I shed a tear and wondered if it was the girl I had earlier picked up. The wind blew the tarp off the body and there I saw that indeed it was the girl. Her body was battered and bruised. I got home and pulled a beer from the refrigerator and collapsed on the sofa. Over come with emotion I started to sob and cry to God, “I can’t take it anymore.” I wondered what the point of the whole day was. Sometimes, the difference between what is real and what is illusion is blurred. The bottle fell from my hands and soon I drifted off into sleep.
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