A few days of sunshine

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It was a brief respite. I had just a weekend in the Sunshine State. Then I had to fly home while my husband stayed on for a conference. But we had two wonderful days of sunshine and warm weather, and we made the most of it.

We went kayaking at an island state park, visited a lighthouse, explored some beaches, walked trails in the Everglades, and wandered through an amazing botanical garden. We even ate our meals outside to soak in as much sunshine as we could before returning to our own cold climate. As I walked barefoot in the sand, I kept saying dramatically, “This is the last time my feet will be warm for months.”

Everywhere we went, people were still talking about Hurricane Sandy. When the woman ringing up my purchases in the little grocery store heard where I was from, she asked immediately, “Is your family okay? After the storm?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Some family members are without power still, but everyone is safe.”

She’d lived her whole life in the islands: she’d seen any number of hurricanes. “We’re used to them down here,” she said. The woman at the next register began chiming in with hurricane stories, both women jumping back and forth between Spanish and English while they talked.

“We don’t usually get them up in the northeast,” I said. “Or at least, we didn’t used to. But I guess with climate change, things are changing.”

“Yeah,” the first woman said sympathetically. “You’re like us now.”