Florida
by Bobbi Lurie
I wake at eight. It's too late to join the others for supper.
I decide to watch television instead. I flip through the channels as best I can, unable to fully understand how this hotel television works. It keeps landing on a channel waxing poetic about the glories of Florida.
Finally, I find a station. Sarah Ferguson is on the screen, the picture of her interrupted with the snow which shuts out Sarah's face every time a jack hammer interrupts the conduction of the image while the vibrations make my teeth hurt. But I got a deal on the room since they're in the middle of construction, trying to make this dump of a hotel into a tourist spot.
The deal I got is why I was able to afford this conference in the first place. So far, I have missed many meetings and meals. I like staying in my room, taking naps and photographs of what exists outside my window. I see the tide of the Florida shore glide in and out in the distance from my window. I am mesmerized by that and the palm trees below.
Back home in Wisconsin, my kids are staying with their father. Whether they are playing with him or not is hard for me to say. He told me he needed time for the kids to grow on him again. I didn't even want to venture a guess as to how long that might take.
This television show presents Sarah Ferguson's trials and tribulations. Of course I know how these shows always end on a happy note, with the princess working for Weight Watchers, moving in with her ex-husband, the prince, living with her two perfect daughters, becoming famous in America.
Sarah is sorry for all of her sexual transgressions. Sorry. So sorry. This is what the TV audience adores. To be sorry. So sorry I let him kiss my toes. It was foolish. I'm so sorry.
It's too late to make it to dinner. It's too late to go out alone. I turn the channel and find an infomercial for a face lift machine. The infomercial tells me that for three installments of $59.95 I can look ten years...
Everyone's trying to look better than they do for who or what or why I don't know.
In England I saw a TV show about the cultural differences in how women die. First the camera took us to India where widows are taught to jump into the fire to burn with their dead husbands' corpses, eager for cremation. Then the camera flew us to Scotland where the women are more resistant to death. They live in nursing homes where their sisters (if they have any) protect them. Then they flew us to Florida where old ladies in polyester were swaying their hips inside a hula hoop to keep in shape for a possible future.
I look in the mirror for a minute, surprised that I still look young. Then I look back into the screen. Fergie is speaking again. Her facial expression is somber, her lipstick is brown. Her dress looks like velvet. The timbre of her voice is serious. She is sorry. So sorry. So sorry.
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i love this, that is really all i can say.
A biting, wonderful piece. "The infomercial tells me that for three installments of $59.95 I can look ten years..." *
So much to recognize in this brief but accurate story. From "He told me he needed time for the kids to grow on him again." to "Everyone's trying to look better than they do for who or what or why I don't know."
A rich tapestry, skillfully woven. Love the "bite" of paragraph 6. And the wonderful line beginning "Everyone's trying to look better...." A real jewel. Fav.
Adore this, it's so honest and severe but soft on the edges. No bullshit going on with you Ms. Bobbi Lurie, you tell it like you see it, and the result is strong.
*
Good writing, Bobbi. Effective.
"Everyone's trying to look better than they do for who or what or why I don't know."
I like it.
These are such powerfully drawn tales linked with seamless glue. the honest, bravura writing feels overwhelming in a mystical, gut-wrenching way. Sorry, sorry. I can't seem to get this right.
Fave.
For me this says, "If only I could be what you want me to be, but I'm me and I'm sorry."
So hugely powerful. *
Really good piece, Bobbi.
*
A midlife crisis of small, but not quite manageable, proportions. Gentle and true.*
well done.
I remember reading this at Left Hand Waving. Nice work. *
The line about the Florida tide sets this piece into the larger scale of time, as the piece reaches out in other ways to India, to Scotland giving some of the tragic resonant notes of the universal against which we read the personal. What a fine balance this piece strikes.
Yes, a fine balance overall, as David suggests. I particularly like the part about the old ladies in polyester swaying their hips to keep in shape.
Excellent. *
such an honest piece. Especially the face lift for 59.00 Don't we wish?
Right to the gut with this, Bobbi. Very well done. I like the balance and flow, the building emotion.
Excellent. It feels like Florida inside and out.*
Strong work. Stays with you after reading. Fave.
*
I love what you write about Fergie and I so much don't care about her. I really care about what it means that the kid's father says the kids are going to have to grow on him again. That will lodge in my gut for a long time.
This is kind of an existential whirlwind that transports the reader from Florida, to Wisconsin (my "home state") to England, India and back to Florida - while never really leaving the psychological landscape inhabited by the narrator. I feel like I was really in her skin and seeing things through her eyes. A lot going on in a short piece. Fav.
climate luscious, people barren - the balance beam is tilted, everything slides off sunburned skin. eat an orange, feel better.
(great piece, loved it)
Brilliant, really scorching. Wow. * Fav it to bits.
just now finding this
love
love
love