June 9: Seaside Revisted

It had been too long. Those morning seaside strolls in Fort Lauderdale, the sunbright meditations sitting beside the waves. Yes, I'd waited too long to return to them. When I had moved from Fort Lauderdale to Dania Beach, I had begun to find other times to visit this stretch of ocean and other Broward beaches to enjoy too, especially those in Hollywood and Dania. Nothing wrong with any of that. Except I genuinely love the Fort Lauderdale beach, especially in the morning. Something about all the runners and walkers, all the tourists out looking for breakfast, the strip of restaurants and shops and hotels just coming to life. I've rediscovered it now, thanks to a business meeting I had arranged for a recent early morning.

A colleague from the nonprofit community and I were to meet at St. Barts Coffee Co., which is on the ocean road directly east of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. It's a nice comfortable place with good coffee and smoothies. This was a frequent morning hangout for me after those meditations I mentioned.

On the day of my meeting, I arrived at the South Beach parking lot early and watched reflections of the low sun off the water. The sky was streaked with swaths of dimpled, high white clouds. The whole morning scene looked as beautiful to me as ever. People were exercising at the free outdoor gym area here and others already were swimming in the sea or lathering up for a morning on the sand. I took a slow walk north toward St. Barts, offering a flirty hello to an attractive woman who was stretching after her workout and getting an equally flirty hello back. I kept walking and found I was still a little early for my appointment so I ducked into a patch of shade to wait. I ended up chatting a few minutes with a very pregnant young tourist from Thailand, discussing her hometown of Bangkok and her visit to South Florida. Eventually my colleague showed up and I sipped one of those smoothies as we exchanged ideas and plans for an hour - it was a useful meeting, as things turned out. But when it ended, I could feel that I didn't want to go back to my car for the return trip home. I had missed those regular morning visits to the Fort Lauderdale beach, missed them more than I'd realized. Missed them enough, I now understood, that I would have to find ways to make them happen more regularly again.