I Grew Up

We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair. – Best Coast
 

I grew up in South Florida, eating fresh-caught fish and lobster, mangos and avocados from trees in my front yard. There was always a boat on a trailer next to the trees, and usually one more in some state of disrepair, waiting for my former Coast Guard dad to fix it. I played alongside lizards and locusts on carpets of St. Augustine grass. I wore bright colors and white huaraches. I got Publix bakery cake on my birthdays. I sang the Orange Blossom Song at school. When it rained a lot, I played in the flooded streets. When I went camping with my Girl Scout troop, we held contests to see who had the most fire ant bites.

Most Saturdays, I went to the beach with my best friend. We boogie-boarded in the surf, built sand castles, got into harmless verbal spats with snowbird kids, and ate pizza and ice cream from the boardwalk. I looked for shells to add to my prized collection of good specimens at home. I got a lot of sunburns, even though I knew better.

Though I’ve still never experienced a hurricane, there were a lot of near misses and one tropical storm. I have a clear memory of a gray, windy, choppy boat trip across Biscayne Bay with my dad to my grandma’s house. I was sure we went to help her put up hurricane shutters, but when I brought this up to my dad recently, he didn’t remember it. Maybe it was just a stormy day.

One year, my class’s song in the school Christmas pageant was about a snowball fight. We stuffed white socks with polyfill and threw them at each other on stage. None of us had any concept of actual snow.

I could snorkel before I could officially swim. I got a yellow snorkel when I was six years old, and only retired it a few years ago, when my family finally insisted I get an adult snorkel. We took the boat out to the ocean all the time, and even if we were there to fish or lobster, we usually jumped in for a few minutes to see some coral reef. My parents taught me the names of the fish. Black angelfish were beautiful; barracuda were scary; hogfish and grouper were delicious. Sometimes we saw a sea turtle or a nurse shark. Once, a flying fish did a few leaps alongside the boat. Once, when I was very little, my dad took me out shrimping with him at night. I slept in the tiny cabin until he woke me up to see all the shrimp in the water under a bright lantern.

On the last day of fourth grade, I hugged my favorite teacher goodbye, got into our van, and followed a moving truck to Memphis, where I would finish growing up. But my parents brought us back to Florida every summer, making sure it would never leave us. I have one tattoo, a nautilus that I got four years ago this month. It represents many things, but one of its purposes is to remind me who I am: a daughter of the sea. A pirate queen.

for whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea. – e.e. cummings

 

This post is part of the 10 Things to Tell You Challenge. Today’s prompt is I Grew Up.