Florida Flowers Part One

I’m getting a new phone soon. Instead of transferring my photos over, I’ve decided to delete them all. Go one-by-one and decide what I want to do with each one. New phone, fresh start. As I’ve been going through the photos, I’ve enjoyed looking at nature photos from my time in Florida.

My time in Florida was strange. I felt like I was just visiting the entire 5 years. I always knew I would leave. There was a lot to like, but I never felt like I was at “home.” Or I should say I rarely felt that way.

Now that I’m in Minneapolis, another place I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, another place I like but that doesn’t feel like “home,” my thoughts on the concept of “home” are changing.

What if I’m at “home” any time I’m around a plant?

These are orange trumpet flowers. Amazing! Plants and flowers were definitely the best part of living in Florida. Life felt like walking around an art museum where the flowers were the art.

A lemon tree! I never ate any lemons off of this tree because there was a little brick wall that kept me from getting to them. But, I loved the idea of fruit being readily available for people to pick and eat. Why aren’t there fruit trees growing on every block in America?

My neighborhood in Florida had a lot of street cats in it. I walked my dog every day, often just after someone had gone around dropping cat food in different locations.

Do you recognize any of these flowers? If so, leave a note in the comments and I will update their captions.

The way the sun shines through these orange flowers is heartbreakingly beautiful. I could cry looking at these photos.

The alligator signs were fun. As were the alligators. Even more common were lizards–brown and green anoles. That’s probably what I miss about Florida second most after the flowers–little lizards always scurrying around as I walked on the sidewalk.

I have a few more Florida-related posts coming, and then I’ll be done. Moving out of Florida was the best thing for me, but as the year ends and I reflect on 2019, I realize what a big move it was, and how deeply it’s affected me.