Lockdown life’s a beach — but there’s no place like home
The sunshine state of Florida has plenty to offer but Mary O’Conor has been missing her family and plans to fly home as soon as restrictions ease
Remember about 10 years ago when Dublin was engulfed in snow? I couldn’t get to work for almost two weeks and all I could think of was how to get warm. My thoughts kept turning to sunshine and my empty holiday home in Florida and I decided that from then on, winter there would be preferable.
And I’ve made good on that promise to myself ever since.
My husband John and I bought the condo in Belleair Beach in 2001 — it’s had plenty of use as a holiday home over the years, as much by family and friends as by us.
John, who is a concert pianist and teacher, was already spending a lot of his time playing and teaching in the United States — so it didn’t take much to convince me it was the right move. As luck would have it, around the same time, I was offered the ‘Dear Mary’ column in the Sunday Independent following in the steps of the wonderful Patricia Redlich who had passed away. It meant I could keep my brain ticking over and make use of my experience as a relationship counsellor and psychosexual therapist.
A base in Florida always made sense anyway. In addition to playing, John is Professor of Music and Chair of Piano at Shenandoah University in Virginia, as well as Professor of Music at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada; it’s far easier to get from wherever he is to Florida than to Dublin. But we both think of Dublin as home, no matter what.
One of the biggest attractions of Florida is the weather. It’s why I came here after all. I got chatting to an air conditioning repairman after our winter move and on hearing my accent, he asked where I was from.
I enquired if he had ever been to Ireland and he said no.
“Ever been to Europe?” I asked. “Nope” was the reply. I commented that America was a very big continent and perhaps he preferred to stay in the US. “Went to Georgia once,” was his answer. (Georgia is the next state to Florida.) “Got too cold, came back.” And that was it.
Floridians love their heat and it is hard to blame them. It gets very hot in the summer with lots of afternoon rain, but the autumn, winter and spring months are delightful.
There are almost 22 million people in Florida so it is a vast state and with lots of attractions for visitors. Americans think nothing of driving very long distances because their highways are so good. Places such as Disney World and the Epcot Center in Orlando, and nearby Cape Canaveral, home to the wonderful Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, attract millions every year. This year has been different as with the onset of Covid-19 everything closed, but some places are beginning to slowly open up again.
We have very much enjoyed driving through the Everglades National Park where the terrain is quite different to anything else we’ve encountered, but one always has to be aware of the preponderance of alligators and snakes if you are contemplating getting out of the car!
We’ve also been intrigued by Ybor City, a historic neighbourhood in Tampa which is about an hour’s drive away from us. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor, a cigar manufacturer and was populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy. It is a bit touristy but nonetheless well worth seeing to get a feel for what things were like in the old days. Recently with the lack of people on the streets, the chickens and roosters have returned to Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.
The Dali Museum in nearby St Petersburg houses the largest collection of Salvador Dali works in the world. It has regularly changing exhibits of both his canvasses and sculptures, so is well worth a visit.
But my favourite place of all is right here on my doorstep. Belleair Beach with its ever-changing view of the Gulf of Mexico, the huge variety of birds — which always appear to be busy as they run along the beach or suddenly dive into the water to catch a fish — and its amazing sunsets always makes me feel relaxed and far from the real world.
My main hobby is golf and I was very lucky to be introduced by some Irish friends to the local country club. It is the oldest country club in Florida, has two courses and I only wish that my level of golf did justice to the surroundings, but I keep trying. Or at least I did until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I’m also a member of the lovely Delgany Golf Club in Co Wicklow and naturally enough there are some differences. We are much more cosseted here in Florida, the guys in the cart barn have our clubs ready for us on our carts and clean them afterwards, we have starters who give us our cards and sharpened pencils, and there is a wonderful lady in the ladies’ locker room who tends to our needs, even polishing our shoes.
Women here give a lot of
‘I have had the great joy of being able to continue to take an early morning walk on the beach’
attention to presentation. Dress, make-up and even visor positioning are all taken into account as they give each other the once over as only women can do. It is almost as important to have matching everything, including shoes, as it is to have a good score. Early mealtimes are also a novelty and I will probably never get used to American punctuality either. If you are invited for 6.30pm, you are expected to arrive on the dot. This would never catch on in Ireland. As a result everything is over early and I am often back home by 8.30pm. I’ve even met a neighbour, for whom I had done a favour, for dinner at 4.30pm. I was home in time to catch the 6.30 News — and ready for a snack around 9pm. But I very much appreciate American hospitality.
When my ‘Delgany Dashers’ golfing girlfriends come to visit, they are made especially welcome by my American pals. They are invited to join golf games and welcomed into their homes for dinner with an ease that I admire greatly.
But on the flipside of that amazing hospitality, I will never get used to the gun laws here and how the National Rifle Association seems to control the government by making large contributions to politicians.
Just recently on a neighbourhood online forum, somebody posted that the next time they find the person they have on camera trying to break into their car, they will let off shots and set their pit bulls loose. Another contributor suggested that they make sure to let the shots off before releasing the dogs, otherwise they may kill the dogs.
It goes without saying that any discussion surrounding politics is difficult for us here. Nearly all of our American friends, with a few notable exceptions, are Republican. They almost exclusively watch Fox News and so are not hearing or seeing the whole truth. I have started watching Fox News for short periods of time just to see what Republicans are being fed and it’s fascinating how they can put a different spin on things.
So we have had to say to Republican friends that we simply cannot discuss politics because we will lose the friendship. We find it hard to accept what they believe, and they refuse to hear anything to the contrary. At all costs they want to protect their investments.
This makes for a more superficial level of friendship, one where some subjects have to be avoided entirely, and is far from ideal. In fact, one American friend who lives in another part of the US has accused me on Facebook of suffering with Trump Derangement Syndrome because of something derogatory that I posted about her president.
I have the greatest of respect for the office of the president, but I have to admit, in the comfort of my own home, to shouting at the current incumbent as he makes yet another preposterous statement.
Which brings me to what it is like living in the US during the current pandemic. It is a little scary, to say the least. I stopped playing golf towards the end of March although the club remained open. I wasn’t happy that social distancing was being observed, and found that I was getting anxious as I approached the club, which is not what golf should be about. Almost all of my friends have continued playing and assure me that all precautions are being taken to ensure their safety.
We are lucky as we live in a very quiet area and as there are no public car parks nearby, the only people on the beach are residents. It has always been a very quiet beach (unlike nearby Clearwater) and was not closed at any time. So I have had the great joy of being able to continue to take an early morning walk on the beach and the water temperature right now is wonderful. We have done a mixture of having the groceries delivered or shopping in the seniors slot of Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 7am and 8am. However, restaurants and bars have now reopened — with limited seating restrictions — even though the numbers of new cases and deaths are still rising in Florida, and this is worrying.
There seems to be an indecent haste on behalf of the president and the governor of Florida to get the economy up and running again. Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has cautioned against opening things up too soon because it could start another surge, but President Trump said that his statement was “unacceptable”.
What is most heartbreaking is watching the ABC News with its anchor David Muir every evening, when we see thousands of people queuing in gigantic car parks for food parcels, and knowing that hundreds of thousands are literally starving due to having no work. There has been a very long hold-up in Florida of the stimulus package which was supposed to help people.
John has been with me now here in Florida for 10 weeks, and I believe that this is the longest time we have ever spent together, all day, every day, since we got married all those years ago. But we are still speaking and he still makes me laugh! He misses his Steinway piano — we have an upright here but it was never intended for extended use — and he is itching to get back home, particularly with the rising number of deaths here.
I am not looking forward to the actual trip with lots of airports and people to negotiate. But we both miss our brothers, sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughters so much, and after we self-isolate for 14 days, we will look forward — whenever we are allowed — to those very special hugs from those we love the most. We will never again take them for granted.
As a friend reminded me recently, “East, west, home’s the best.”