The View

Summer in Florida. Hot. And quiet. Those of us who are year-rounders kind of enjoy this time. Our streets are less congested, our restaurants have no waiting lines, and it feels more like the leisurely Southern lifestyle you see in the movies. Yes, I'm enjoying the summer here in my little air conditioned condo. Most of the units in our complex are vacant right now, but before you know it, we'll be ready for the snowbirds to come in for a landing. And this makes me think of our seasonal next door neighbor.

As soon as she arrives from points North, the subject of "the view" inevitably pops up. She means the view from her lanai (Florida-speak for 'screened in patio'). Her lanai is right next to ours, so we share the same view. See here's the problem; there are two buildings that make up our condo complex. One of them backs up to the golf course, providing the coveted "golf course view" whereas our building backs up to the condo complex next door, providing the dreaded "view of the parking lot". She is bothered by this a lot. A little way down from us there is more foliage camouflaging the offending view, but behind our portion of the building there is only a sparse smattering of plants and shrubbery in the divide between us and the aforementioned parking lot. Every year she begs the board members to plant more trees behind our part of the building, and she always tries to convince us to join her in the crusade. She assumes we're just as bothered as she is. But we're not.

My husband and I spend every morning on the lanai drinking our coffee, saying our prayers, reading our Bible and devotional books, listening to music and talking about stuff. Then my husband reads the daily paper and points out the highlights to me. Since we don't have day jobs, we are able to spend as much time as we want out there before beginning the rest of our day. It's really nice. While we're out there we watch the lizards running around outside, or occasionally we're treated to a parade of sandhill cranes walking right by us. Sometimes an armadillo shows up and roots around for whatever armadillos root around for. We observe the progress (or lack thereof) of various plants we've put in back there. Sometimes we laugh at the stupid woodpecker that likes to drill into the drain pipe next door. Makes an awful racket, but it's hysterical. And besides all that, we can't help but observe the comings and goings of the people in our neighboring complex. Let me clarify a little about the "parking lot" thing. Behind us there is grass, then the plants, then on the other side there is more grass and then the buildings next door, including car ports and a small parking lot. From our vantage point on the lanai, we see people leaving and returning to their homes. We've gotten to "know" several of these folks although we've never met them. There's the lady with the dog for instance. She takes the dog in her car every morning and returns a little later. We think she might take him to walk on the beach, because sometimes she hoses off his feet after they return. And he must be getting old because he used to just jump into the back seat, but now she keeps a wooden box in her trunk and places it for him to step up into the car. There's the couple who are both quite short, and we call them the little people. They go to church every Sunday. We can tell because of the way they're dressed. It's the only time he doesn't wear a ball cap. Then there's the lady who rides her bike around the parking lot for exercise, making passes every few minutes. There are the two older ladies, possibly sisters, who for some reason always bring their little bag of trash to the dumpster together. Always. If we're still out there when the mailman comes, we know he'll be coming to our place next and we better skeedaddle to get any mail in the box before he gets here. Then there's 'Mrs. Pickles'. We call her that because her puffy white hair and glasses make her look just like the wife in the comic strip 'Pickles'. She's quite old, but always coming and going. Then one day she decided to wash their SUV herself and climbed up onto a stepstool to reach the top. We couldn't really see much because she was kind of behind a bush but pretty soon a crowd gathered and next thing you know an ambulance came. They put her on a gurney and took her away and we didn't see her for a long time. We prayed for her every day. But no sign of her. Time passed. Weeks, months. We kept praying for her. Was she in a nursing home? Or worse? We actually missed her. Then finally one morning we spotted her. Mrs. Pickles was back! Hobbling around with a walker, but she was back! We praised God and shed a tear. And all this time she had no idea that two strangers were praying for her.

So no, we're not bothered by the view. In fact, we're blessed by it. I expect that when our neighbor arrives again this year, the crusade will begin anew. That's okay. I pray for her too.