The Hipsters Are Comin'! The Hipsters Are A-comin'!

I sat next to an uber-hipster family this afternoon at a yogurt shop.  I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised - I mean, it was a froyo joint after all.  But this is a relatively new phenomenon out here, in this burgeoning bedroom community between two of the largest cities in the state, Tampa and Orlando.  The Orlampa corridor, as it were (I guess Orlando won on that since well, they have Disney and Disney always seems to win - and Tampando -  hearkens too closely to feminine protection, I guess).  I should have surmised that once the froyo joints attacked in force, the hipsters weren't far behind.

Anyway, this family was comprised of Dad, Mom, and Daughter - I think...to be honest I couldn't tell if it was a girl or boy, about 9 years old - a strikingly beautiful, highly androgynous child (a what hipster family would be complete with one?) with a short blonde cropped boys style hair cut, wearing a tattoo mustache, wearing all black, very gender neutral clothing with a few pink stripes and black Converse Chuck Taylors.  The child sat perched on the chair with both legs tucked underneath, knees out to opposite sides - very gymnast/dancer style, quietly listening, engaged in the conversation dad and mom were having.  Mom, almost fully reclined, had a similar haircut, so you could see the clasps on her multiple wooden beaded, short necklaces.  Dad, upright on the edge of his chair, left hand slapping out a rhythm on the table, short hair under a fedora, which matched his well-groomed de rigeur beard, that he kept stroking through the conversation with his non-percussive hand...he would periodically break form to eat his yogurt, then immediately return to the stance.  They were so well coordinated in their un-coordinated, expensive-made-to-look-not-too-expensive clothing, cropped flat-front, full cut leg pants with frayed hems and sandals (this IS Florida, after all) for both adults, style-conscious tatts conspicuously placed.   The rings...so many on both, the string bracelets, casually mixed with copper and thin sterling wire.  The discussion...about music, I think, bands I'd never heard of (they were only sitting about 2 or 3 feet away).  The attitude...gracefully sardonic as they quietly critiqued each subject of discussion.  I actually felt woefully under dressed, or under coiffed, would be more appropriate.

This was not a totally unique sighting, but one in which I had time to breathe it all in.  I've been noticing the appearance of the kind with more frequency lately, as I suppose this generation is now coming up with elementary aged children, leaving the dens of urban life and relocating, somewhat surprisingly, but not too surprisingly to the suburbs.  I've noticed some in passing at the local elementary school,  but dismissed the phenomena assuming they were uncles or aunts, cousins, or visiting family friends.  In our sea of yoga pants, running wear, mani/pedis and blowouts/flatirons, golf shirts, chinos and military chic haircuts, they do have a remarkable tendency to seem a bit conspicuous with their layered and accessorized styles, seemingly unkempt coifs and higher than average ratio of facial holes.  But I suppose, upon further reflection, that they actually have arrived here in the Suncoast Suburbs.  It will be interesting to watch the acclimatization.  Which way will it go?  Will we get hipper? Will they homogenize? Some say, the power of the suburbs is strong, and that resistance is futile...but this is a new generation that shouldn't be underestimated.  I now have a front seat for the show. 

When we came home, I found my son a few hours later, reading a book in his room, a fedora perched on his head that I had forgotten he had.  Hmmmm....

Is There a Badge for Consternation?

So...I just spent the better part of a day purging, sorting, and somewhat organizing five years worth of Girl Scout stuff.  There should be a badge just for that!  It's been a trip, looking back on the growth of these girls.  Some of I've had for the entire ride, others more recently, all of them near and dear to my heart.  These elementary years are such rapid developmental times for them - its' amazing to see how different they look and act and feel in just a year's time, much less half a decade.  I wish I had an entire room to dedicate to scouts, but that's not the reality of my life and somehow I need to condense half of my dining room into reasonable and usable cabinet.  It's been quite a experience, and one I almost didn't get.  I became a reluctant leader the very first year my daughter was able to participate - kindergarten, and have been one ever since.

I went to the recruitment rally dead set on signing her up for something I wasn't going to be the primary adult for.  I looked forward to an activity I wasn't making decisions about for the most part, where I would drop her off and pick her up and be surprised at a craft, or enjoy her stories of what she did that afternoon or on her field trip. Oh sure, I'd help out - I'd take on one of those support roles - maybe cookie mom, or snack coordinator, something with limited commitment.  Momma was gonna get some down time.

As soon as I walked in, my name was heard aloud, followed by, "you'd make a great troop leader!" in a variety of persuasive styles from the perky cheerleader to the low-key non-chalant passive/aggressive approach.  I held fast.  I voiced my intent repeatedly.  More for my own sake than anyone elses really.

Later that week I got the call.  "We've got enough girls to put together a troop that meets in the early evening (I was working full-time outside the home at the time), but still no confirmed leader," "Uhh-huh, okay," I replied, "when might we know?" I was strong. 

"Well, it could be soon, it could be a few weeks. We're having conversations with a few people.  Have you given it any thought?" the recruiter asked.
"To be honest, not really, I'm just too busy." I was determined.

"A lot of our leaders work full-time too," she continued.  "It's really not what you'd think.  I've got everything you'd need too - no sense in reinventing the wheel."
"I'm sure, but I really want my daughter to have an experience without me - it would be good for her," I was confident.

"Well...I understand.  I do have a spot in another troop I could slide your daughter into," she paused and I steeled myself because I could hear, as she drew in her breath that preparation for the kill shot. "I kinda have to..." I tried to get it in, to cut her off, to not even get to the awkward moment...I faltered.

"But bear in mind, if we don't find a new leader, none of these girls will to have this experience."
BLAM, a solid hit.
"I...well...." I stammered.  I never should have hesitated.

"Your daughter will be fine.  I'll put her in the other troop for now...and I'll have to contact those other moms..." POW, this one took me down a notch.

"Yeahh...it's always hard to disappoint the girls," she sighed.  LORD this woman was GOOD. The shield went down in a glorious shatter. I caved.

"Well...I guess...I could try..." I guiltily fumbled. "What do I have to do?"

And five years later here I am, preparing for year six.  Turns out it's been one of the best choices I've ever made, however reluctant it was. 

A Path Less Traveled.

There's a strip of road I drive almost every day, sometimes a few times a day, that I typically pay little attention to.  I'm fiddling with my radio, running over the course of my day in my head, slurping my morning beverage, and if traffic is slow probably checking my cell phone for one notification or another.  I'm sure many of us have that experience, for the majority, in fact, of the roads we tackle day in day out.  What now makes this section different is that I walked it the other day, step by step, one foot in front of the other, just on the tail end of the precious slice of morning coolness we get almost every day in Florida - even in summer.

It's an ugly piece of road, no doubt, with no sidewalk to speak of.  Little residential left, those few stalwarts living with front windows covered with old sheets or cardboard to block out the now somewhat faster-moving life in front of them. Many old houses turned into service businesses - nothing that would require foot traffic, some transformed more successfully and with more care than others.  They sit in clusters of two or three - perhaps old family compounds, with some surrounded by larger tracts of land that used to be, I suppose, bucolic yards, filled with sunshine and perhaps laughter and lemonade on a hot afternoon.

Typically, when I am driving it, it's during a version of rush hour, on what is now deemed a failed road for modern standards and demographic counts, lines of cars in opposite directions (only one lane each way) either semi-crawling along or whizzing past depending on the rhythm of the stoplights or drivers needing to turn left across traffic.  But at this time, it was amazingly quiet - just a few vehicles passing infrequently, giving me a glimpse of what the life on that road may have been like when all those houses were filled with families.  In some of the yards you can still see faint outlines of where gardens used to be, old outbuildings now dilapidated, and hints of the original driveways, that weren't much more than shell covered sand, or well worn grass.

There's not even a footpath to speak of, and certainly no sidewalk. That's how few pedestrians hit this section of road, but happily to my feet, no refuse nor animal droppings to worry about either.  I realized quickly that I didn't have to keep my eyes on the ground for too long, and was able to absorb the scenery - which is how I prefer to stroll anyway.  The tallest of the grass on some of, what I would suppose would be easements, not much higher than my ankles, and sparse enough that I didn't have to worry.

I came across one property, probably all told about a third of an acre, in particular.  This one still residential.  It was a small, square, and very symmetrical house, with a front door and two straddling side windows.  Old style windows, wooden frames with single pane glass, single-hung sash - the kind I'm sure that still has thin rope in the frame. A small front porch with three steps to the walk with a small portico to keep the rain out while you find your keys.  The whole house probably is two rooms wide, maybe all of 20 steps (my stride is a solid yard) from side to side.  Each side had two windows as well, very functional, very quaint.  The house was so well-kept, perfectly painted and appointed, not a ridge of dirt in a shutter or gutterline.  It's lawn well-groomed, even to its very edges where it met the road.  The house sat relatively close to the road, but not square to it, slightly off-kilter, which is probably what caught my eye in the first place.  But what kept my attention were the front windows.

They were opaquely painted.  I imagined what it was like to make that decision, to paint one's windows shut.  It's one thing to put up curtains, or a prop up room dividers, or even throw that cardboard against the pane.  These are all temporary solutions.  To paint them provides a permanence.  A bold statement of closing out a world changed, or maybe, closing in a world that hasn't.

When that house was built this road was barely even a road to speak of.  It was a quiet country path, no pavement, no county signage or streetlights.  Laundry likely hung in the yard soaking up the ol' Florida sunshine.  You might not even see anyone for days as this was the rural escape from big city.  Back then this area was called New Hope, and the loudest sound was from the poultry colony chickens from less than a mile away, and if you didn't work there, you worked in the various orange groves that covered the landscape.  Air-conditioning was keeping your windows open, so people spoke softly and from time to time some music probably drifted along the breeze from inside.

To give you a little context for the growth of the area, in 1922 the region had 100 documented residents.  By 1960 that had increased, at a reasonably moderate rate to just over 1,500.  These paths had little need for change for a long time.  In the next 20 years, the area would see the the population explode to over 100,000.  Change came hard and fast here, in less than a cosmic blink.  No longer is the area called New Hope, the chickens and most of the oranges are gone, retail, service stations, and restaurants having supplanted them long ago and the air is filled with sounds of planes, trains, and automobiles.

But sometimes, in that sweet moment of late morning, if the air is somewhat still, you may hear a whisper of backwhen, the silence broken only by an errant chirp or a scuffle of brush.  It's usually brief, and I was lucky enough to have been at the right place at the right time to catch it.

I wonder if through those darkened, tightly sealed windows the light of day will ever be seen again.  I keep walking, and finally arrive at a new stretch of sidewalk,  accompanied by all the trappings of new growth - curb cuts and fences, fire hydrants, and asphalt driveways.  The ground underneath my feet is no longer green or yellow or brown, just man-made gray.  It's no longer soft and slightly uneven, but strenuously hard.  I look back once more and realize I will likely never walk that path again, and also that I'm glad I did.

Orange Embers

Orange groves are burning in southeastern Hillsborough County...at least that's what a local said, as the airborne ashes danced on the dying wind.  The acrid stench burned my nostrils, so strong I couldn't smell the cigarette dangling from his mouth.  His wife, or girlfriend, nodded in agreement, her eyes squinting from the dust. 

I could see the smoke in the distance at first - wasn't sure if it was weather that I was headed into, as so often here you approach rain and depart from it, slipping easily in and out of the weather like a dolphin at sunset.  But as I got closer the smell wafted through the a/c vents.  Not an unusual odor for around here - burns happen all the time, some controlled by the county, others by farmers, sometimes not so rural properties forgetting that suburbia has cropped up around them, and then there's the developers.  This one was stronger than usual though, heavier, denser.  Perhaps the humidity had something to do with it, and the lack of a good wind.  It just hung there, a dun fog draped all over the west side of the highway, arching over to the east in a strange formation.  Turn your head due east and the sky was crystal clear, the sun making its exit on another day.

The local shook his head and bid me good night.  Damn development, he muttered under his breath.  I nodded in agreement, partially feigning my allegiance - since what brought me here is precisely what he was cursing, however, there's always a tipping point, I suppose, and I prefer to think I came in on the good side - the part that brought in jobs, some modest wealth, infrastructure improvements, and diversity.  I am not part of that damn development, I choose to think, the kind that strains the system, that gets built for building sake, that no longer take into account quality of life and simply insert quantity of livers.  I probably am, but these two don't need to know that.  I smile and wish him well.

I brush off some of the white ash from my windshield, dust off my shoulder, and hop in my car, as I watch some fireworks fly into the sky, silently.  I worry for a moment that maybe that's what caused the big burn, it's happened before, and will happen again.  I turn the car north, and see the clear air ahead, the newly paved and expanded highway, the bright reflectors and freshly painted stripes, and drive away from the burn, leaving the smoke and the smell behind me,  and head to the manicured landscaping of my suburban bubble.  When I pull in to my driveway, I turn my head and get an echo of the scent - it's still in my hair.  With the distance, it's not a bad smell anymore, more like the end of a campfire; a nostalgic scent as the embers slowly fade away.