I mentioned that it gets dark fairly early here, but I didn’t mention how much the cold is getting to me.

I don’t like the cold. I have a theory that I’m not anthropologically suited to it having most likely descended from nomadic desert peoples.  Or I’m just a huge baby. This past Wednesday, when I left our building, I exclaimed, “It’s beautiful out here!” and then found out it was fifty degrees. I’m officially losing my Florida blood and becoming a Midsouth person.

I know it sounds strange, but that moment felt significant to me.

Y. and I headed over to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art that morning after depositing N. at the venue for her holiday show rehearsal.  My two year old son and I quietly walked through the museum, and had interesting conversations about shields and bad guys and flowers.  Then, I came across a tiny exhibit called “Pines to Palmettos: Florida Landscapes of Walter R. Locke.”

I walked past the understated etchings of places near or similar to the place where I had grown up, and I suddenly missed that the trees were probably still green there.

And I missed the sandy soil that we tried to grow things in.

And I remembered the way you could get away with wearing flip flops until the first week of December.

And, man, I missed my mom.

And, then inevitably I thought of all of the places I had taken for granted because they were always going to be there.

There’s a clock tower in Daytona proper that has been there ever since I can remember.  When I was a girl, I would play around its steps with my brother while my parents walked up and down the boardwalk or sat on a bench and watched us.  When I was a teenager, it was where we would sit for a few minutes to figure out what we were going to do that evening after spending the day at the beach. When I was in my 20s, it was a place I would sometimes visit just to clear my head.

And then I just sort of forgot about it.

Until now.

Florida still feels like my home. In the midst of a “beautiful” 50 degree morning, home momentarily slipped away from me.  It’s ridiculous, but I feel disloyal.

We’re all here together, and that’s enough to make me happy… but I still feel like we’re not home.

Home still feels there. I wonder if it always will.

Daytona Beach, Florida -- Clock Tower at the Boardwalk

You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the time of our lives
We were born and raised in a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days…

Nothing compares, no worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes, they’re memories made
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

- Adele, Someone Like You