Keys to Viewing Southern Florida’s Evening Hours
The Listomaniacs have overtaken almost everything. We are bombarded with Top 10 Best Ways to Do This or That, 20 Top Things You’ll Never Believe, and so on. Commercialized click baiters cast their lines and make a catch.
Now, those people have officially entered the spiritual space.
They have inserted their sacrilegious selves into the horizons between sea and sky to give us lists and opinions on the top Sunsets in the World.
I’m delighted to announce I’m one of them after witnessing sunsets from The Keys. The archipelago reaches south of Florida like a fragile, beckoning wrist and hand. It’s been broken and healed many times. Thin fingers curl, invitingly motion and say “come here”. Or not.. There’s only nature’s welcoming energy expended in the invitation. The air. It begs for the deepest breaths that warm the mind. Unlike the screaming signs of Vegas, it’s just the seagrass and mangroves that wave one in and down the highway..
The first few sunsets I witnessed in Florida were north of The Keys, in Miami, Fort Lauderdale. And, Fort-Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. A funny, mini-municipality name I’m guessing, since Fort Lauderdale itself is so grand and downright cool it needed a small spinoff. A Venice-y junior.
Being bred and raised on the opposite coast, it was disconcerting to see the sunset only over land while the entire Atlantic ocean breathes at your back. It’s presence dominates daily life with it’s humidity cooling breezes and salt cleansing air.
Then we visited the Keys and it’s oceans, all around. The Gulf of Mexico to the West and the Atlantic Ocean to the East separated by dirt and sand only a few miles, yards or not at all.
The atmosphere of peace and revelry brings on a highly contagious flu that feels good. Duval Street is giddy. Conservative personalities pine to be a hippy, even if for an hour. Dreadlocks might truly be an option going forward.
So, down in Keywest on Mallory Square it all comes together.
Descriptively simple, we visited the party called “Sunset Celebration.” Everyone on the planet gets an invite.
It’s a stress free event, because if you’re late one night, there’s tomorrow. And forever after that. Sunset Celebration is every single night.
The spiritual collides carnival-like with the preachers selling salvation for the last days, alongside the physics and mystics who offer a paid insight into your tomorrow.
Cuba is 90 miles away. Check out the deeply rusted 55 gallon drum “boat” that dozens of immigrants risk everything for just to step on our soil. How many more are trying while we watch today’s sunset?
Meanwhile, out on the piers, the cat-man and his trained house cats do the impossible. They listen to him and do tricks.
A machete flickers with the fading glory of sunlight to crack open a coconut.
It’s fresh, the best best meaty candy I’ve tasted and the milk, far better than any recent cocktail.
A guy high up in the air, on stilts, his personality climbs even higher capturing the crowd far below.
There’s some other dude that has a way with fire. Dangerous.
The views of the human festival is mesmerizing to the East.
But, the West is where the real show is. The sun is setting.
The crowds line the bulkhead, some sitting some standing. They all are staring, waiting for the final moment like expectant parents, tucking their child safely into bed for the night. The water is slowly pulling up it’s covers. They are waiting for God’s grand finale. According to the phones and selfies, it’s just a few minutes away. The sun is massive as it sinks into the water, throwing citrus paths of light onto water and sky.
It is done.
Until tomorrow, at 36 past the hour.
