From Rocket City to the Space Coast

Week 64: Melbourne, FL

I apologize in advance. This will probably prove to be the most boring blog post I have yet published. Mea Culpa. Problem is, I have not done a whole lot here in Melbourne this week! Our hotel is, as it frequently can be, on a highway. Everything has to be driven to and I am carpooling again this week. So I have not gotten around much. That said, just to be in a climate, at long last, where you can wear shorts and a t-shirt is in itself an event!

On Friday, my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Larry came by and whisked me off to their vacation condo on Satellite Beach.
This was my only opportunity to get to the beach this week and it was made doubly pleasurable by the opportunity to see my relatives. Nancy and Larry are enjoying a glorious retirement. These folks get around! They travel all the time and drive from one end of the US to the other. They have been coming to this part of Florida for almost a decade every year. Their place is right on the water and I imagine falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the surf right under one's window must be heavenly. I have a special connection to beaches and to the sea. I think all people who grew up, as I did, on a coastline, respond with a deep intuitive feeling to the ocean. My aunt and uncle strolled for a while on the sand with me (they are inspiringly appreciative of all of nature, pointing out the various sea birds, the colors of the sea and sky, and other beauties) and then let me walk on myself. There is something deeply healing about a long walk on a beach--the lull of the steady surf in your ears, the fresh salt air, the sun on your back and the feel of your feet sinking in the sand or plashing through the water's edge. My mother taught me the therapeutic and spiritually renewing value of a long beach walk. It was something we did a lot together as I was growing up in New England. And for Mom, that ritual was something that she made time for when we were kids, driving up to Maine, taking a motel room for me and my siblings and herself, just so she could get up at dawn and "walk the beach." It was there, with the sea whispering to her, that she sorted out the tough decisions of her life, said a silent prayer, visualized her future. Walking on Satellite Beach allowed me the time to think about how far I have come in the past year or two, and to contemplate where my next steps will take me.

We've had delightful audiences here in Melbourne at the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts. Both audience members and press have remarked on what a tonic "Spamalot" is for people immersed in the gloom and anxiety of our country's economic dilemma. Just to get out amongst a group of other human beings and laugh for two hours seems to be what the doctor ordered. It feels good to provide that relief for people. I firmly believe that we will pull ourselves out of this difficult time. It's important to stay positive and, yes, look on "the bright side." My dresser in Melbourne has been the lovely Christine.
Christine lived in Norway most of her life and has been in the states for a couple of years. She is by trade a lighting person/electrician, but the nature of stagehand work is that you take whatever employment is available. So this week Christine gets to operate zippers instead of lighting boards. Thanks for taking good care of me and Jeff Dumas this week, Christine! And with that folks, we wrap up our weekend here and move on to Tampa on Monday. Maybe I will have a better story to share next week, or at the very least, have a tan line.