Idle Speed, No Wake

with mangoes and gingerbread incoming

Jun 02, 2024

The jacaranda tree at the edge of the seawall has blooms on it. Some people call these trees messy because their clusters of flowers cause explosions of purple confetti on the sidewalks. But how great is that?

It’s also the time when frangipani flowers twirl down to earth like perfumed pinwheels. The bougainvilleas spill over people’s fences and create wild sidewalk canopies of fuchsia. The royal poincianas are firing up too. It’s like you can feel heat by looking at their cayenne-colored blooms setting blue skies ablaze.

It will be my second summer spending more time in Florida, so I’m just getting used to these colors. I love how telling time by nature is different depending on where you live—the differences in how the seasons express themselves and how they practice their letting go.

Fish crows hang out on the jacaranda limbs. Shiny and black like little goths with their sound of resistance: “Unh-uh…unh-uh.” Along with the colors, I love getting immersed in this new-to-me symphony. How this place sounds different to me. The surprisingly high-pitched osprey sitting regal at the tallest part of a boat. The low coo of the mourning doves and missile-like whistles of the grackles. The chortling but nervous white ibis pecking at the grass.

The jacaranda tree grows near a sign in the water that warns boats. But it somehow feels like a warning (or friendly advice) to us all. Idle Speed, No Wake. Or to put it another way: Slow It Down. Do No Harm.

Recipe: I’ve been reading Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking, and I’m inspired to make her gingerbread. Do people make gingerbread in summer? I actually googled this question (as if needing permission), and why yes, they/we do. A bright drizzle of citrus glaze could summer it up, or you could pair it with fruit. We’re coming up on mango season, which overjoys me. Mango and ginger get along great. I loved reading these two fabulous takes on mango culture—in Tampa Bay and Miami. Bring ‘em on.

A few more bits on the birds:

I can’t stop talking about the Black Skimmers nesting at St. Pete beach (about 500 birds and 200ish nests). I want to go back when the eggs hatch.
Have you seen the meme about the term seatherny? “The serenity one feels when listening to the chirping of birds.” Is this a real word? I hope so.
I’ve shared the Emergence magazine podcast episode “When the Earth Started to Sing,” but I wanted to point out an especially incredible part about how birds from earlier times might have sounded more like reptiles. Birds with the syrinx, or specialized vocal organ, made it through an asteroid impact 66 million years ago:

“As the forests and other habitats slowly came back, birdsong diversified. Had the asteroid not hit, bird communities today still might be dominated by species without the syrinx. Birdsong as we know it, might not exist. In modern birdsong then, we hear the evolutionary legacy of lucky escape from catastrophe followed by innovation and renewal.” -David George Haskell, “When the Earth Started to Sing”