I have been away from Miami, the city where my family made their homes after relocating from the northeastern US, for many years. I moved away in 2009, and this year made the most complete departure I likely ever will. One by one, the threads holding me to that place in particular wither and crumble, in items reclaimed and funerals attended. I had sad, sad cause to spend a few days in this sunlit hometown recently, being driven around in relatives’ cars, and those days were enough to cement in my mind what my opinion of Miami had already long been: the sheer heedless decadence of this place is incompatible with a life well-lived. You do not want to live in Miami.
miami
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I Want To Miss The Moorhens
I used to think I didn’t get attached to places. The past was a haze, an awful mystery I yearned to escape. My heart was not heavy when my family moved us from New Jersey to Florida when I was 10, and it was lighter still when I finally left Miami to seek my fortunes in Ottawa, Canada. I had much to flee. It was only later that I found something to mourn.
Protected: Vladimir and Ayn Walk into a Bodega
Why I am an Atheist – 2 of 3
Miami was an interesting transition. Elizabeth, New Jersey was founded in 1665 and was once the capital of New Jersey. It had stairs and pointed roofs and narrow streets and snow every other year and about 120,000 people. Miami was founded in 1896, about 75 years after the United States acquired Florida, and hosts about 400,000 people in the city and ten times that in the surrounding metropolitan. Everything in Miami is longer, flatter, wider, and hotter. In a way that just isn’t true in the American Northeast, the wilderness is around every corner. We found knight anoles in our mango trees and blue mangrove crabs under our cars. I probably had more affection for our New Jersey life than any of us, and I found this new place lovely.
Continue reading “Why I am an Atheist – 2 of 3”
Continue reading “Why I am an Atheist – 2 of 3”