first comes love: CRUSH ON FLORIDA

Thursday, April 13, 2006

CRUSH ON FLORIDA

I have a crush on Florida right now. I'm infatuated with the weather, the vegetation, the beach, our sweet downtown neighborhood, even the theme parks. I love that I can take advantage of the outdoors almost year-round (I enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch with Amy and Ana today at Lake Eola) and that spring/summer fever has already hit people here (contrast this with Illinois in late March, where everything was still gray and dead, and everyone was literally weary and depressed from five long months of winter).

Evidence: I called Orlando "home" for the first time when I was in Rockford last month. I find myself wanting to spend our one-year anniversary at some Florida destination. I daydream about buying a house here, raising children here...

This isn't exactly new. When I was a child, we always vacationed in Florida, so it seemed like some sort of tropical wonderland. When we did our state projects in sixth grade, I won my first choice of the Sunshine State and put together an entire binder of Florida facts, from precipitation to population to elevation (Florida is flat).

But at some point after moving here, I began hating Florida. Maybe it was the lack of friends. The squelching humid summers. The defeating job. The churchlessness. The absence of fall leaves and snow. Living in a suburban cookie-cutter-house wasteland... I wanted to get out of here.

Things have obviously changed since then. I have people I'm close to (one special one in particular), a church home, a satisfying career. I live in a quaint historic neighborhood. The summers are still unbearable and the seasons still don't change, but I'm not thinking about that now in the midst of a gorgeous spring.

I do want to stay open to thinking that this may not be where we settle, however. When I see photographs of majestic mountains, of watercolor autumns, of fresh snowfalls, I'm reminded of the fact that there are other types of beauty in this world in which we could dwell. When Philip talks about job opportunities in England, I feel a little thrill at the thought of living for a time in a different culture. I think I could get used to wearing fleeces and sweaters and scarves again. And if I ever do seriously decide to consider studying writing at the graduate level, we'd have to move, no way around it.

I guess I'm just thankful for the contentment I feel here at the moment, and at the same time, I want to be flexible and willing enough to take other future possibilities into consideration. I want to enjoy Florida, but not get too comfortable here, if God has other ideas for us...

Some natural Florida beauty for you...