One living room wall in our Sarasota rental is almost entirely glass, with the lanai (just a screened-in porch, says our son-in-law) beyond it and, across a shallow stream, a wide expanse of bright green grass and scattered trees. Deep in the condo, at the dining table between living room and kitchen, where my wife and I spend hours on our laptops, I sit directly across from that view of the golf course. When the vertical blinds are open to let early morning air enter, I sometimes see the sun emerging behind distant trees. This morning, rising toward a cloudless sky, it slowly illuminated gently rolling grasses and highlighted dewy stretches alternating with dry ones. Some wet patches changed from silver to orange and then to gold, brightening minute by minute. I crossed the room to photograph the scene, continually captivated by alterations in color and light. Nothing stirred on the golf course. When the sun rose more fully above the trees, its face turned bright white, too brilliant for me to look at. I shut the blinds and let it continue to rise unseen.
Wood storks sometimes occupy one solitary, tall slash pine on the lawn upland from the stream. They are another reason for me to open the blinds, step into the lanai, and lean slightly through the screen door to photograph them. Five were in the tree last night. I'd seen at least one, sometimes two, in the late afternoon and early evening over previous days, but finding so many at once captivated us. The first time I saw two on the tree an osprey launched himself off a slightly lower branch and sailed just above the stream past our condo. Osprey. Wood storks. On our first days here we delighted in spotting a limpkin, a few egrets, a cluster of white ibises, and, though I identified them only days later, a bevy of black-bellied whistling ducks. Another day, after a light afternoon rain, three sandhill cranes calmly strolled along the stream bank. Walking in a nearby park we saw an anhinga on a float in a pond, wings spread to dry them, and in a patch of thick wetland a great blue heron stood virtually motionless—motionless until I wondered out loud if he were a statue and he turned his head to stare scornfully at me.
Over the years, when we'd come to Sarasota to visit our daughter and her family, we'd fly to Tampa, rent a car, and spend a few long weekends. We'd often stay on Siesta Key, on the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico, where we could walk the beach and identify the shorebirds: snowy plovers, semipalmated plovers, killdeer, sanderlings, western sandpipers, herring gulls, royal terns, least terns, black skimmers, brown pelicans. Once, on a morning when we were somehow almost alone on the beach, a half-dozen dolphins passed us offshore. We smiled and waved but I doubt they noticed us. Sometimes the kids would join us to swim in the Gulf waters. For a short time, we'd enjoy a different way of life.
Lately, for health reasons, we've driven down in the fall and rented a house or a condo for more than a month. On weekdays, with daughter and son-in-law at work and grandkids in school, Sue tutored at an elementary school and I hung out in libraries, teaching online or scribbling. Now, in this pandemic year, we send curbside pickup orders online to shops with proximity to our rental and later drive off to fetch them, facemasks on, car windows up, trunk open, hand sanitizer at the ready. We used to take the kids on weekends to familiar places like the Bradenton Museum of Science and Nature, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Ringling Museum, and Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, maybe enjoy a boat tour on Sarasota Bay and snacking at Yogurtology. We're unlikely to visit any of those places this year, as much as we value them. When we see the kids, we try not to make our air hugs too tight.
A few days ago, we all drove in separate cars to Turtle Beach and were almost the only masked people on the shoreline. We walked to a semi-isolated spot where the youngest granddaughter braved brisk waves alone while the rest of us cheered her on. A peaceful evening seaside moment. I tried not to compare it to the many other shoreline strolls we've taken, the quiet mornings, the calm sunsets, the sense of connection to something outside ourselves. I wanted simply to enjoy it for the moment we were there. I wanted to remember what we value about being where we are.