Florid-duh, Part One

My company's corporate office is located in Florida, and as part of my new role, I now make frequent pilgrimages to the mothership.

So - I find myself in Florida. In a business suit. With a briefcase and a laptop. The irony is amusing at best.

If you were to inventory my life's catalogue of most egregious offenses, you would quickly conclude that I apparently misplace all morals and principles and good judgment when I cross the Florida state line. (I don't think I am not alone in this revelation.)

I started coming to FL as a little girl on vacation with my family. Sweet sunny summer days with sandcastles, the oddly endearing scent of Coppertone, and the promise of some type of shellfish as sustenance. Wave jumping and shell seeking and tide squatting until time to go in and shower. Sunshine and salty skin until late afternoon, then a great meal and a do-over on the horizon tomorrow.

Fast forward, past my parents divorce and my subsequent surge into adolescence and young adulthood. The beach, the ocean, the AWAY-ness of my Florida perspective became idyllic... I believed that Florida is where people go to be happy. Take that mindset, add alcohol and hormones, and you now have a crystal picture of my Florida experience, circa 1981-90.

Not spending time in that memory now. You have an imagination. Anyway, I only made it across I-10 once or twice per year, usually with a car load of like-minded "friends" in search of nirvana...be it alcohol, bikinis, drugs, sex, sunshine or an unholy subset of these hedonisms.

Apart from all that, the ocean kept YANKING on me, wanting my attention and reminding me that water has something to do with real and true peace. Not the drug or tequila kind, not the male attention kind...real true ribcage peace.

I developed a passion for scuba - maybe if I got INSIDE the ocean, I could understand why I get so much peace from it. Not just of the happy childhood family memory understanding, but of the scientific biological realization that I breathe easier, worry less and even exercise more in salt water.

Part 2 forthcoming...