Edition #183: The Sights, Sounds, Smells, Sensations, and and Tastes of Central Florida, Late '90s
And the early '00s. Plus, a poem that will make you want to travel, a zany essay that restored my faith in the NY Times, and a brave little boy.
A Note From the Editor
We sat in a semi-circle around the dimly lit yoga studio, mirrors and arched doorframes all around us, vaguely witch-like. From down here, you’d never know that upstairs, the sun shone brightly, the air warm and salty.
A lovely woman shared a story of riding on a tiny plane with her two children. Just moments after liftoff, they each knocked out on either of her shoulders, as if drugged by the Wicked Witches’ poppies. The woman was amazed at the swiftness with which sleep had found them; she surmised that it must have been an automatic stress response. This was a preamble to her real question: what did we all do when faced with such stressors? Did we have any tools that helped us calm down our nervous bodies and minds?
One girl shared a technique she had learned from her therapist, meant to pull you back into the present by engaging the senses: list five things you see, four things you hear, three things you smell, two things you feel, and one thing you taste.
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Of sights, The Powerpuff Girls decal on my dusty bedroom window, sunlight glinting off of the tip of Blossom’s oversized red bow. The stained beige carpet blanketing the bedroom that was never my own; shared first with my older sister, then with my younger one. The deep carmine hue of Berry Punch filling a plastic cup to the brim, perched haphazardly on the dresser that started off as a baby changing table. The dark punch stain, hastily blotted with an old towel, ringing the carpet near the closet, whose plastered walls and corners I knew intimately from crawling back and forth on all fours in the dark, pressing on every square inch of wall, certain a secret passageway would be revealed.
The squat, white plastic laundry basket overflowing with freshly laundered clothes. My mother, perched in front of the boxy television, folding worn cotton shirts and day-of-the-week underwear sets, Wednesday and Sunday always mysteriously unaccounted for.
The two-sided kitchen kind filled with murky dishwater, all those crusted plates and Berry Punch cups marinating in their juices, mom’s preferred method of rinsing. Out the trio of windows behind the built-in bench, a swimming pool shaped like a baby chick if you had enough imagination. Its sky-blue bottom partially obscured beneath a thick coating of greenish-brown sludge, leaves floating on the water’s surface. Nothing a quick skim and a brush couldn’t fix.
Beyond the pool enclosure, a trampoline perfect for impressing friends with flips and straddles, for camping out with a sibling when adventure called, for crying on when you thought you were getting a Dachshund puppy that you had already named, already bought the collar and cage and food for, only to find out there would be no Dewey.
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Of sounds, the ice cream truck idling out front, its familiar tune drawing all the neighborhood kids out of their houses, drawing parents' wallets out of their pockets even though there was nothing good for sale, no soft serve or cones or sprinkles, just SpongeBob-shaped popsicles with hard black gum balls for eyes, Flinstones push-up pops whose fruity sherbert would melt instantaneously in the Florida heat.
The hum of cars driving down the block, reaching the cul-de-sac where we would ride our Razor scooters and bicycles round and round, ever weary of the unfamiliar faces peeking out from the passing cars. Stranger danger was embedded in our psyches thanks to those child kidnapping videos they regularly showed us at school. It usually happened at Walmart or while walking home alone, but it could happen anywhere, even right outside your house while your parents were home.
The shouting, as familiar as my face in the downstairs bathroom mirror where I would stand and stare for indeterminate periods, some unknown voice reminding me that one day I would one day die, those first brush-ups with existential dread. Stare long enough and one muddy brown eye might start to wander, longer and you might forget this mind is attached to that body, to that face.
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Of smells, the baking skin of Ken and Ivy, the older British couple who owned a vacation home at the end of our block. No matter how high the temperature climbed during their visits, we could always find them sunbathing on cushioned metal loungers, a scant handful of sweetly scented coconut cream mingling with the ripe tang of sweat and a pot of freshly brewed English breakfast tea. Always hot, always sipped in the sun.
The persistent cloud of cigarette smoke that clung to the skin and fingernails of my father, the two of us seated shoulder to shoulder in his gold Toyota Tacoma on the way to dance class, the driver side window rolled down just enough so that we weren’t hot boxing.
The thick aroma of sugared frying oil wafting around the Rodeo fair, funnel cakes and elephant ears and french fries, fried Oreos and fried candy bars and corndogs, juxtaposed by the sharp stink of farm animals in the arena. Frightened chickens and gigantic pigs and prized cattle, those farm kids we forgot lived amongst us sporting Levis and plaid button-downs, proudly showing off the four-legged fruits of their labor.
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Of physical sensations, the painful, persistent tugging of my scalp as the Jamaican woman at the flea market pulled my hair into tight braids. My fingertips discovering the militant precision of the braids plated flush against my scalp, no mirror needed, temples pulsing steadily. The heat at the flea market pressing against us from all sides, the bead of sweat rolling down the back of my neck. The stalls of softening fruit and junky plastic toys and old clothes. The sweet yellow fluff of a chick standing beside a baby duck caged next to a bunch of sick-looking puppies, all for sale.
The red and green printed paper tearing from boxes of toys I had circled in the fat JCPenney catalog months earlier—a bracelet maker, walkie-talkies, a handheld contraption that promised to braid your hair with the push of a button. My arm, elbow deep in the same stocking I’d had since I was born, feeling for the netted bag of chocolate coins, the solid rectangular body of a Pez dispenser.
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Of tastes, the salty crunch of toast slogged with melted butter at school breakfast those mornings my mom dropped me off early. Chasing bites of toast with bites of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, spooned from a plastic bowl whose seal I eagerly ripped off, soaked in sweet cow's milk poured from a cardboard carton.
The first bite of Oreo McFlurry after my annual dance recital. The creamy, cold sweetness enveloping my palette, flooding my brain with endorphins. The brain freeze that came halfway through, as reliable as my mother seated across from me, as my sisters and brothers in the audience of the big show. The bits of chocolate cookie wedged into my molars for hours afterward.
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Cheers, my dears, and as always, thanks for reading. The format of today's essay was inspired by two different poems: one that reminded me how vivid descriptors can act as a time machine, thwarting us back into decades past with the right combination of words, and the other whose brilliant form provides a beautiful scaffolding for all sorts of memory-triggering sensory descriptors.
I got back to Costa Rica on Monday after a few weeks of traveling. It feels good to be back in my own space, to sleep in my own bed and to return to my beloved routines. My body is reeling from the travel, stress, and lack of sleep—getting from Costa Rica to the British Virgin Islands to Florida to Costa Rica requires more flights than should be legal for such short distances. Have a wonderful weekend. Watch an Oscar-nominated movie (or short, even better), pet a soft animal, ignore all your outstanding tasks for an afternoon.
Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming
25 Simple Pleasures For 2025. I know what you’re thinking—but it’s March and this is end/start-of-year-list content! True, but also true that I love a list, especially if that list is a low-stakes collection of little joys. Number 3, 13, and 15, were my favorites. And of this same end/start-of-year, low-stakes list content canon, this is one I revisit often. I still make the witch potion tea to this day—fresh nettle, fresh mint, lemon, and a little raw honey. Divine.
Spoleto: A Poem. This poem enchanted me. It brought me right back to the streets of Umbria, the towering church hovering over the courtyard, a local opera group performing on the steps. That first bite of lightly fried calamari at a humble restaurant where we were the only non-Italians, the long days spent floating in the pool, reading novels, drinking glass after glass of wine made right there at the house, from vines we walked past each evening. The poem is from this collection by my current favorite poet, Dorianne Laux, and it has been blowing me away.
Pregnant With One Child and 295,233 Words. The state of American media has felt fittingly dreary as of late. On that note, one of the more politically charged newsletters I read has been on a slow-burning tirade against the New York Times due to the forced resignation of an Opinion columnist. The coverage has generally bummed me out—can nothing remain good? This essay, however, restored a bit of my lost faith, for it is so zany that even the subhead, ostensibly written by the author, doesn’t quite capture what it is about. This essay feels like art, in part because of the author's signature, eccentric voice—likely a result of being a book critic and consuming a lot of literary works—and because it doesn’t have a sharp point. It does, however have a neat conclusion that gives the reader a sense of satisfaction. Happy to see the Times publishing work like this.
Perhaps You Should…Watch A Sweet Oscars Speech
Anyone who has ever been characterized as “intense” will appreciate this speech. As I watched it, I felt I had finally acquired a kinder, more gentle understanding of what the adjective could mean. While watching this speech, the word intense immediately came to mind—it’s emotional, sweet, raw, excitable, authentic, not trying to be contained. If that is what intense has meant all along, then I will gladly accept it as a compliment rather than a criticism the next time someone uses the word to describe me.
**Bonus Content** (Badass Alert)
I brought my surf skate back from the US and am so excited to get back on it. I cannot overstate how terrifying this must be. I once tried dropping in on a teeny, tiny ramp and chickened out 10 times. As one of my very best friends said when I showed her this video, a reminder that we can do hard things.
Also, this is mesmerizing, if I were in the US or Europe I’d be all over this anniversary tour, recently re-discovered this song and it especially hits during America’s most unhinged era, glad to know I’m not the only passenger on the cinnamon roll train— you already know I’m hitting all these spots when I’m back in NYC this summer, and suitors, take notes.
A Quote From A Book You Should Read:
“She was like that, excited and delighted by little things, crossing her fingers before any remotely unpredictable event, like tasting a new flavor of ice cream, or dropping a letter in a mailbox. It was a quality he did not understand. It made him feel stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see.”
-Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri