I have a banana tree growing in my backyard. I didn’t plant it. The thing took root like a weed. Now it’s three feet tall with leaves like something you’d gather in your typical video survival game. I bring this up to illustrate how strange our new home is, at least how strange it is for two old folks from Michigan.
For those just joining us, my wife and I moved to Key West a few months ago, and we’re still adjusting. We’ve lived in Michigan, Vermont, North Carolina, the Washington DC area, and for the last ten years, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. One of the things I learned is that it takes about six months to transition mentally from visitor to resident, when the shiny veneer wears off and the truth of a place is revealed. The gloss dulls, but the reality is richer. I’m still in the honeymoon stage with this island life, and as such I notice all the things I won’t register in another year.
For example, there are no insects here. Okay, that’s an overstatement. There are certainly termites, a fair amount of tiny ants, and I have seen a butterfly, and two completely unrelated house flies. I have also been bitten by a mosquito, although I didn’t see it. This constitutes “no insects” because in Virginia our cabin is routinely swarmed by wasps, hornets, bore bees, gnats, several varieties of flies, stink bugs, warring tribes of ants, and lady bugs (cute until they cluster inside your house.) We’ve even battled with Japanese beetles that insisted on turning all of the leaves on our wonderful trees into something akin to fine, laced doilies. Honestly, we had whole “insect seasons” that ran all year because those bugs I just listed were the ones that came to life inside the house. Plenty more buzzed outside. As such all windows required screens, and doors needed to be closed immediately upon passing through. But on this island, the grand total of insects are negligible, falling well within the margin of error. People everywhere leave their doors and windows wide open to let the ocean breeze blow through. It’s nice—disconcerting, but nice.
Then there is the time disorientation. The length of days are slightly different due to being closer to the equator than Virginia, but the distortion I speak of is more calendar related. There are seasons here, just not the meteorological ones I’m used to. Winter, spring, summer, and fall, have been replaced with wet and dry seasons. (Winter is dry, summer is wet.) While the temperature never fluctuates too much, always roaming around the seventies and low eighties (21-29 Celsius), the summer humidity makes it feel much hotter. I’ve been told it almost never gets into the 90s but recently it has from time to time. And then there are the two non-meteorological seasons defined as the busy, or high, or snow bird season, and the opposing slow, off, or low season. These mostly align with the dry and wet periods and are defined as when the island fills up with tourists and part-time residents which can boost the population by the tens of thousands. And the weather doesn’t change, it is always between 72 and 82 degrees and sunny, and has been since late November creating a Truman Show/Paradise vibe with its unerring perfection.
The disorientation, however, comes from it always being what I view as spring or summer. On vacation, such a bizarre shift in climate is isolated, a momentary blip. You step through a wardrobe into an imaginary world that is out of sync with your own. You bask, tan, look around, and then you head back through the wardrobe and everything returns to normal. Remaining in Narnia, things get weird. Seeing decorations and hearing Christmas carols in the shops and on the radio during what appears to be the Fourth of July, is bewildering. And the weather, the warmth and sunshine never changes. It’s sort of eerie.
When I stopped my nine-to-five job to write full-time, days of the week lost their meaning. I no longer keep track, and never know what day it is. Not knowing the day was odd, but not knowing the time of year is disturbing. I was riding my bicycle, looking up at the blue sky and thinking how it felt like spring, almost like Easter. I thought a moment, did a mental check, and was shocked to realize it was spring and Easter was the next Sunday.
Something else that’s different is how our adopted cat Loki (named because she has proven herself the god of mischief) doesn’t bring home dead mice to prove her worth. She wanders the yard with a dead lizard in her mouth. I don’t know if it’s the same one, if she eats them or practices catch and release, or has a dark corner where she dresses the GEICO mascots up in clown suits, sets them in little stick chairs, and pretends to hold macabre tea parties by moonlight. I mean, well…Loki—right? There are also small dragons the locals call iguanas, and of course wild roosters roam the island constantly competing in the chicken version of The Voice.
The people here are extremely friendly—really friendly, like Pleasantville nice. I feel less like I bought a house and more like I joined a fraternity. In all the places Robin and I lived, we tried to engage neighbors by greeting them on the street and inviting them to dinner and parties. Nothing worked, and we had really nice dinners. Since we arrived on Cayo Hueso (Bone Island) we’ve been repeatedly accosted and inundated with invitations by absolutely delightful people who want to welcome us to the neighborhood. One man, who lives across the street took us out to the theater for world class chamber music, then had us over for dinner. A woman we passed who was eager to meet us, refused to reveal anymore than her name because we learned the neighbors all along the street were conspiring to have a get-together in our honor and she wanted to save all her best topics for then. The local bakery had been slipping me free pastries because I showed an interest, and the bartenders have a bad habit of bringing two drinks to my wife when only one was ordered.
The entertainment is non-stop. Bands, stage shows, comedy performances, parades, contests of such diversity they are hard to describe, and too many to catch them all. And the other day Robin met a bewildered man who asked her, “So, what do people do here?” As if he’d booked a five day vacation to the restroom of a Denny’s. Robin replied with an incredulous stare.
Not everything is wonderful. I have more chores here. The house needs far more upkeep. The date this house was built is not entirely determined. It’s possible it was erected in 1892, with an upgrade to indoor plumbing in the mid 1920’s, but it is in great shape because previous owners looked after it. I don’t want to be the lazy one that ruins the thing. Just keeping the the jungle that surrounds the house watered is time consuming. I never lived in a jungle, and I don’t now, but this tropical climate has the foliage of one. While lush and beautiful, it sheds a lot. I’m accustomed to trees dropping leaves in autumn. Here they do it constantly — while never seeming to change the number of leaves on the trees. Leaf raking is a daily activity. On occasion a huge palm frond will fall, sometimes coconuts. It’s like living in the world of Riki Tiki Tavi, or a Johnny Quest episode.
And then there’s that banana tree.
In Detroit, Vermont, Carolina, and Virginia, we had all sorts of uninvited things grow in our yards. Dandelions, picker-bushes, wire grass, maple trees, kudzu, even trash tossed from passing cars or blown by wind, but never a banana tree. Its mother across the fence already dropped a bunch in our yard. They’re good, as are the avocados from the tree in another neighbor’s yard.
So, in conclusion, no insects, cute geckos instead of mice, and tropical fruit trees instead of weeds.
Adjusting might take longer than usual.