There’s Just More to Love.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the kitchen cooking some bok-choy / beef stir fry recipe that I found on Cooks Illustrated (Mecca), and I realized I didn’t have any Chinese Pepper Paste. Now, back in Orlando if this happened I’d have had to shut down the cooking process, get in the car and drive miles to Publix to get my paste and be back home. (That is if they even had it.) This would have resulted in over-cooked Bok Choy, mushy noodles, and dry and chewy beef. But here in Old Town, all I had to do was walk out the front door, go around the corner and walk into my local Fausto’s Food Mart.

Just an aside here; I really love Fausto’s. I’m a complete grocery store SNOB, and though I have in fact lowered myself to shop in Winn Dixie over the past few years due to unemployment woes, I historically shopped at Publix, and before they went out of business, drove 20 miles to frequent Goodings. We still do the majority of our weekly grocery shopping at Publix in New Town, but I’ve been comparing prices, and I’ve found that if Im not buying things like beer and wine, Fausto’s really isn’t THAT much more expensive than Publix. I’m still not convinced I’d want to do all my bulk shopping there, but I just can’t stay away.. they have the cool and fancy food stuffs that I crave. They have Cole’s Peace Bread and Baby’s Coffee.. those two items alone make it worth it! Anyway, I digress, this post isn’t about Fausto’s…

As I was walking back to the apartment from Faustos; a trip that takes maybe two minutes), I had a revelation that this is the way things really should be! The sun was going down on a beautiful day, people were stopped at the corner chit chatting while holding their bikes with their dogs in padded baskets over the front wheels, and the palm fronds were rustling in the late-afternoon breeze. I had one of those ‘moments’.

How cool is this I thought! I ride my bike to work every day – a lengthy 7 block commute, and go literally weeks without even getting into a car. We ride our bikes everywhere, and in the event that we do walk, like when there’s a group of us moving about, it takes at most 10 or 15 minutes no matter where we might be going in old town from our apartment.

The friends I’ve made here in Key West are among some of the coolest folks I’ve ever met. People here really are different. They all come here for similar reasons. It’s like there’s a big polarizing filter over Key West. It only lets the cool, mellow running-away-from-it-all people in.

You might think that the people who live here are are all party animals and high functioning alcoholics, and you’d be right to an extent, but what I’ve noticed after being here almost a year is that these people are not here to drink themselves to death. This is not leaving Las Vegas.  They are running away yes, but not from responsibility and reason. They are running away from polite society. Read that last sentence any way you like, and if I were feeling feisty and adversarial right now, I’d elaborate on my idea of what that means, but for now just fill in your own version.

Another very important thing I’ve noticed: The people I meet here are GENUINE. They are  here because Key West allows them to be comfortable in their own skin, to let their freak flag fly so to speak. And as far as I’m concerned there is nothing better than that.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Key West isn’t without its issues.. there are a few. But they pale when you stand them next to the brightness of the locals and the culture and the all-around coolness of the place.

OK, I’m being beckoned… time for dinner.

M

Edit!: I just re-read this and realized one would get the impression that I am saying that there are no truly alcoholic escapists down here. There certainly are. But I think a lot of people think of Key West as an island populated by those people, and it surely is not. People here get up in the mornings, go to work, take their children to school, attend church.. just like any where else. They just do it all with a little titter because they know something about life most people don’t .

That is all.