Paradise

This morning I wrote an article about how the Trump administration could spell trouble for shareholder-submitted proposals at annual general meetings. Bit of a change of speed.
Then we said goodbye to Janis and her home in Shadow Wood. We had lunch with my cousin Linnie at a country club in her development, Bonita Bay. After lunch we settled in with Anne and Rick in their development, Island Cove. Anne and Rick were our neighbours when we lived in Crawfordsburn. They split their time between there (Anne is from Belfast originally) and Naples.

The man-made nature of everything continues to get to me. All the grass is the same shade of green—even though Florida is in a drought. It is all cut to the exact same length. All of the roads are lined with parallel columns of palm trees. All of the lakes are manmade. I’ve never seen a frog or a bug. When I lived in Florida, there were all kinds of bugs. The one relief from this manicured monotony is the birds. At Janis’s lake, there were ibis, great blue herons, egrets, anahingas, and cormorants. I loved to watch them hunt in the lake.

Each of the developments has restrictions on home design, paint colour, and landscape plants (all landscaping is managed by a hired team). No cars can be parked on the streets. Most cars are in garages, so you don’t usually see a car in a driveway. Each development has 1,500 or 2,000 houses. You can only get into the developments as a member or with a guest pass. Below is an internet photo of a Florida development. I’d say the lots are bigger in the developments where we’ve stayed, but you get the idea.

There are lots of palm trees, artificial lakes, pools, screened in porches with tranquil views. When you leave your gated community, you don’t have to go far to the Mercado or Coconut Point or Promenade Mall--all built to look like quaint villages. Here’s a typical gatehouse (internet photo).

Everything here is about 20 years old, except the people, who all seem to be 65 to 85. No children. No bugs. No frogs. No POC, except the army of men replacing old impatiens with new impatiens, cutting down dead palm fronds, blow drying dead leaves. The absence of any sign of decay perhaps helping the residents avoid facing their own mortality. It’s all a bit unnerving really.

I guess it works for people who build their lives around golf, bridge, dinners at restaurants. But the homogeneity of it all gets to me, as does the lack of anything that isn’t manmade--i.e. a natural landscape. I hope I can age within a community that wasn’t purpose built for retirees. One last internet photo (I didn’t take any pictures at Janis’s or Ann’s):

Most of the houses are one story, not two, but this is the aesthetic--everywhere.
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