In a strange bed last night, which is not strange for me (I travel a lot), I knew almost immediately I would have trouble falling asleep, so I took more medication, and then overslept. That included getting up in the middle of the night to pee, and spending almost a minute banging around in the dark bathroom, unable to find my way out. Door edge, bang!, wall, bang! door jamb, bang!, sink, bang! It’s one of those hotel bathrooms in a bathroom, the toilet and tub off the alcove with the sink, so there were two doorways to manage. I made it back to bed, and woke up to David calling.
As I talked to him, I pulled on some shorts, slipped on my flip-flops, grabbed my purse and headed out for the dock-front coffee shop to get some cappuccino. I’m in Key West for a meeting, it’s miserably hot and humid and I’d planned to get up early to try running before the worst of the heat builds. Not today. I walked down the steps and came out a side door of the Westin and turned towards the water, around the corner of the building and there was a wall of cruise ship taking up all of my horizon. Bang!
Later in the day, after the meeting adjourned, I walked to a state park to swim at what seems to be the only real beach on Key West. Surprising, the lack of swimming here. People come to party, I’m told, not to be on the beach. It was gloriously tropical — palms trees, deep blue sky, sea water streaked emerald and turquoise and aquamarine against the crushed shell white sand. As I swam along the beach towards a breakwater that marked a turn of the shore, I came up for a breath and there was the cruise ship again, coming around the corner of the key where the water turns from ocean to gulf. It’s monstrous white hull was all I could see. Bang!
What’s around the next corner?
Grace Mattern 