“ Though mine Protestant blood doth chill in mine watercraft in solemn contemplation of the Papist heresy of ‘ purgatory , ’ there doth be a sure physical fitness to state conception as an allegorical shape of speech . ” -Rev . Vidad Dogo
We are in a strange type of purgatory properly now .
I am currently sitting with my laptop computer in a hotel elbow room by the airport . Every few hour , a flight of stairs escape paradise , headed off to colder and more civilized climes in Europe and North America . Thanks to Corona - Chan and the delirious response of authorities , the aerodrome is barely undetermined . We are waiting for a flight , but before that , we call for some final paper from the US Embassy . The flight part of the equation has been taken care of by a very good friend who knew we were ready to get out , but the newspaper are another issue .
We are steer back to Florida . We just do n’t incisively know when .
Back ? What ? What ? You are moving back ?
In the midst of a PANDEMIC ?
Yes . It is time . We could have exhort on , establish our main house , embed more trees , expanding the gardens and ferment on the new agroforestry project at our church building , but we are simply ready to go home .
There is a tension in the zephyr here . We are not as welcome as we used to be .
And that is o.k. . It ’s not my commonwealth .
I am glad I never decided to reveal our accurate location on the internet . You never recognise when keeping your cards secretive to your dresser may compensate off in the future . If we had ejaculate all our personal information on YouTube , we would have attracted a fate more local attention . As it is , we are just an target of gossip on the street , not some famous person kinsfolk that would delineate unwelcome visitant . There is something unsafe in the air now that we did not feel before .
We decided to leave the US because it appeared to be nearing collapse . This collapse seems even more obvious now , but it is still home . Being away for over four years has made us realize how very American we are , and how foreign we are elsewhere . And I have hope for America now , believe it or not . Where we go one , we go all , as someone once say . The resilience of the people is amazing . There is an ingeniousness and brilliance that is lack here . A standard - outcome American cracker in a pickup truck does better cultivate than almost any professional pipe fitter , electrician … or regime loss leader here . That is not exaggeration , either . When you deal with repairmen not showing up on meter – or at all , no one knowing their job , no one getting thing done – you protrude to drop these thing . The fiddling things . You also miss pipage that do n’t break every few days . red-hot water system . Clothes dryers . Air conditioning . Working net . enough grease monkey . server that pay attention to their tables instead of disappearing .
belong exile has been a very utilitarian experience . It has essay that we can live without a quite a little of amenities , but also revealed how nice those creature comforts are to have .
Yes , I may have made a fault on my location , but that is fine .
As Nassim Taleb write inAntifragile :
“ … my characterization of a failure is someone who , after making a mistake , does n’t introspect , does n’t tap it , sense embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a fresh spell of information , and tries to explicate why he made the mistake rather than moving on . These types often consider themselves the “ victim ” of some large plot , a regretful boss , or bad weather condition . ”
We made the best conclusion with the info we had . We expected an economical downturn and polite unrest , not a pandemic and racial unrest . It does n’t weigh , though . It was a fantastic escapade . And a generative one ! I leave behind the states having only published four books . make Your Own Florida Food Forest , Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening , Compost EverythingandGrow or go bad .
Since then , I wrote six novels and a non - fiction piece of work under various pen names , as well asTurned Earth : A Jack Broccoli Novel . I also wrotePush the Zone , The Easy path to Start a Home - Based Plant Nursery , Free Plants for Everyone , Florida Survival Gardeningand the soon - to - be - released booksGarden Heat : A Jack Broccoli Noveland the wholly revise , expatiate , and extensively illustratedCreate Your Own Florida Food Forest ( 2nd Edition ) .
I wrote lump of books sit at a beach recourse sip tea as tourists burned their buns laying on the red-hot Baroness Dudevant . I drank rum late at dark with locals and rode home in a rattle landrover through the dark and muddy rainforest , dodging goats and tree limb . I learn strange local words for fruit and tree and then pored over image online , trying to link them to Romance names . I swam in the warm , turquoise sea off thoroughgoing beach and watched the sun jell over tropic mountains . I played guitar live by the beach with my wife plump for me on violin as the full moon rise above . I tasted cocoa from the pod and ate homemade breadfruit pudding .
The hotel where we are stay now has a beautiful view from the porch . A view that almost makes me want to stay .
But Florida still call me home . Sometimes through the beauty and nature I miss , like chanterelle search and the perfume of pine wood , alligators and familiar butterfly ; but also through hoi polloi . the great unwashed write all the time hop I can assist them discover to grow during the pandemic . I have been asked to help church , public parks , community garden – but I ’ve been too far aside .
Even more so , the family back home misses us , and my children need to see their first cousin .
And the sand is shout out me to plant again .
The pandemic and the ongoing economic collapse wo n’t be fun , but at least we ’ll be among friends and our own people . That is truly a outstanding benediction , and one that it take a few long time for me to gain . The isolation of the pandemic really drove it home .
Thank you , Corona - Chan !
I ’m going home .
That is , once our paperwork goes through and we can catch a flight of stairs .
Virgil ? You there ?
