Change And Beauty

I call this the secret garden and in a way, it is. It's right beside/behind the cabana house, walled off from everything- it's own little courtyard. When I walked into it this morning I realized that Glenn, the owner, has spent a huge amount of time planting, trimming, and just working his ass off. It all looks like something from a magazine. 

It's paradise. 

It somehow all looks barely tamed, primeval and yet at the same time, a lush garden of Eden where Eve and Adam can partake of the glory of it all they want as long as they share with the wild things, the birds, the fishes, the snakes, the lizards, the land crabs. 
I saw one of those this morning in the dirt behind this little bit of architectural landscape art. 

The crabs of which I am speaking are huge and at certain seasons, they come forth from their burrows in the river-mucked earth to mate and plunder. Hundreds and hundreds of them. So many that it can make you tremble to realize they are living here all the while, around us, below us, beside us. The one I saw this morning was far bigger than Mr. Moon's hand and that is a large crab. He scuttled out a little ways, saw me, waved his prodigious claws, and retreated into his underground home. 
I was happy to see him. I remember his great-great-great-great... grandfather from when I was a child. 

We hung around this morning, taking it all in and I made us a nice breakfast and we went down to the dock to see what the river was doing and it was hot but lovely, the water rippling and flowing with the tide. A small blue heron fly by and landed on a piling next door and surveyed the river with us. The mangroves which line the shore are blooming, I guess, with their fat buds. They look healthy. They are protected now, as they are a vital part of the watery ecosystem and I am glad of that. 

We got a better look at the railroad trestle and although it breaks my heart to know that it is all being torn down and replaced, I realize the need for that. I have read that great chunks of rust are falling into the river along with lead-based paint. It was built in 1927 and that's a very long time for a trestle that is built over salt-brackish water to survive. 

We got ourselves together and went to the Methodist Church thrift store and then drove into Sebastian and went to the Goodwill where it would appear that natural fibers are unlawful. We drove around and Mr. Moon indulged my constant recitation of memories and we had lunch down on the Indian River. 

I had noticed that the fish house run by an elementary school mate of mine had disappeared and looked it up and found the saddest video which you can find here. 
Bobby Judah is the same age as me and his family fished the river and sold seafood for seventy years and now they have been forced to sell the property the business sat on. 
Things change. Things change. Things change. 
I have been thinking about that all afternoon, and it has saddened me. Although this little part of Roseland is so much like the Roseland I remember as a child, all around it there have been more changes than I could have imagined. Where once there were fishing docks and miles of bare river front, there are now restaurants, and McMansions and fake Victorian houses. But it is still holds beauty and I am aware of that. 

The sky. The light. The water. 

It started raining after I took that picture and we've had a slow and peaceful afternoon. I had thought we would go swimming in the pool and Flo, the flamingo, has been drifting by the kitchen window all day, trying to interest us in joining her, but although swimming in the rain can be a rare joy, we have been lazy here in the cabana house, reading and resting. 

Brad, the resident peacock whom we have been asked to feed showed up a little while ago. 

"Oh hello, Brad," I said. 

"Harumph. Where's my catfood?" he asked. 

I cannot imagine anything more charming than a peacock named Brad. 

If you find me to be scarce in the blogosphere as to answering comments and commenting on other blogs, please forgive me. I feel a great need to Be Here Now as much as I possibly can.

Love...Ms. Moon