Let me think back to cool the summer breeze, water slowly splashing onto my feet, the sand in my backyard and the cute Bermuda shorts. I remember the Gucci shades, and the cute flip flops, New York Fashion meets Southern Flowers. I remember Florida.
I remember days of anticipation met with the rush of the humid summer air that doused my perm and shredded my hair. I remember a broken air conditioner and sunlight magnified by the car windows that turned my skin six shades of black. That creepy Cabbage Patch Doll will never leave my memory. Her skin so plastic, her eyes so blue, her hair a scarlet red and that laugh, oh that laugh! A laugh that woke me up at 12 o’ clock at night, so cheery, so enjoyable, so unindicted by anything physical in the room. I remember WWF and ECW on Friday and Tuesday nights surrounded by an air dampened with Heineken and Budweiser, family and friends camped out around the 36 inch plasma T.V screaming “Kick his a”s!!” I remember Florida.
I remember walking down the parkway beside a lake that I’d previously been living next to for years and watching the mossy trees creak and crone and reach out for some unseen item in the atmosphere. Going back Rosemount NEW 3.0, my new, old elementary school vamped up into a pool/park/pond/passageway/why-wasn’t-it-that way-when-I-was-going-to-school school?! I remember walking into the complex across the street and visiting our old place, door number 407, which I thought was fantastic because it was the first three digits of our house number and no-one else had that (I of course didn’t get out much and that’s why it was so special to me). I remember frequent trips to Picadillies, Golden Corral and Popeye’s and blisters I got from jogging to combat my gluttony. I remember Florida.
I remember my aunt, and the sixty pounds that turned her from Barney to Tyra Banks, that smoke that made my uncle more inclined to drink, and Macaroni Hamburger Helper, delicious! I remember playing touch football with the guys in my complex on Wednesday mornings and dreading having to visit my inherited cousins down by Carver Shores. Oh the abs and the misery of having three year old Shantanakwana throw up in my lap and smile her gooey smile, then run away. I remember loving, old Florida.
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