Orlando

The breeze is creating ripples in the lake. As I sit here on this twenty-foot long pier lined with chaise lounges and stare at the water, I begin to feel like this solid, anchored pier is moving right along with it. The breeze shifts directions and there is a slight mist of water coming from the fountain in the center of the lake, which is filled with fish, and every now and again we see turtles with their heads like telescopes popping up out of the water. There is the moss-covered turtle, which I have never seen but Tim and Thomas saw him on Thursday, that makes appearances in his mossy shell. On the other side of the lake a lighthouse sits with a sweetery in the base, where you can buy ice cream cones and large cookies and other such things you might find in a sweetery.
This is a manmade lake, of course, and the lighthouse is all for show, but this resort is a paradise just outside the walls of Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter, and Shamu. But I'm not complaining. When I boarded my flight for Orlando, Salt Lake was 28 degrees with a thick layer of smog hovering over the valley and a snowstorm expected in the afternoon. Tim and Corinne made it out of Boston in the nick of time, just before the little winter storm that could dumped 3 feet of snow on Massachusetts. We're all happy to be here and out of the wintry wastelands we left and don't necessarily want to return to.

My niece is 11 months old, and I met her for the first time on Friday. She's already my pal and actually wants me to pick her up on occasion, crawling over to my legs and looking up at me. Thomas took a little more work. He's a cautious child and takes a bit longer to decide if you're okay or not. Today he left me carry him down to the the beach. He put both his arms around my neck and smiled as we slid down the slope to the wet sand. I gave him a cookie at lunch, and he held my hand as we walked along today. As cliched as it sounds, it makes me feel more hopeful about the future knowing my East Coast pals know me as their aunt, rather than someone they see pass by in the background on facetime.

We drove out to Cocoa Beach today. It was a drive for the half hour we spent at the beach. The wind was strong so we didn't stay long, just long enough for Mags to eat a few fistfuls of sand and Thomas to run and dig and play. I put my feet in the water because it's been  few years since they've been in the Atlantic. After the brief beach visit we looked for a lunch venue. We reluctantly stopped at a place called Goombays. The waitress brought us water and highchairs for the kids, but they were so dirty, and the place was so... grimy that we decided to forgo food poisoning and find somewhere down A1A, closer to Ron Jon's Surfshop, which now looks like a Vegas attraction.

The sun is setting now behind the building our condo is in. The breeze is getting cooler and I wish I'd brought my jacket with me. I've only been here 2 days, but the nature of this place is making me feel like I've been on sabbatical for month and am only now preparing to go back to work. I don't really want to go back to work, I don't really want to go back to Utah, or the climate at least, for that matter. I've been struggling lately about futures. I have several that could happen, but I won't know which will happen until mid-April. Not knowing stresses me out. I do not like not knowing. I do not like things being up in the air. And, even though I have a great job and work with really amazing people, I've been restless lately. The thought enters into my mind that I did not suffer through years and year of college, and graduate while enduring dialysis and kidney failure to be a glorified secretary for the rest of my life. I fully understand that if one of my possible futures works out, chances are high I'll be an assistant again, the difference is that it's the beginning of a career with innumerable chances to move up and on. I don't have that in my job, and at this point in my life, opportunity is what I need.

In the pool area to my right calypso music is playing and kids splash around in the zero-entry pool. People walk to and fro across the bridge to my left, a group in the lounges on the main walk way laugh loudly and intermittently. One of the resort staff straightens out the lounges that are all askew. Long clouds float over head; they look dark but the sky is blue around them. A paddle boat passes me in the lake and the breeze picks up. It's getting cooler as the sun is going down. The palms rustle, kids shout, the group laughs. Orlando has been kind to me so far. Four more days of sun and water and palms.