Clyde Moore: Hurricanes and Hydrangeas

I guess it really started with hurricanes and blue hydrangea.

She was adorable, and together they were one of those gorgeous couples. The kind you feel awkward talking to at first. You assume they’ll be completely unfriendly or have the personalities of fish or something. They’d have to. But no, they were both delightful.

I met her at a neighborhood association meeting in our old Fort Lauderdale neighborhood. They used to live in Atlanta, as did we. We joked about the recent hurricanes, which were not even funny. Then, I invited them to a party at our house and I remember her standing in the doorway of our kitchen, coming out to the pool, holding a small round clear vase with three beautiful spreads of blue hydrangea. She looked angelic.

I’ve told the story of how we came to Winter Park many times, but never gone back so far before. We met a couple, Melanie and Gordon, in our then neighborhood of Rio Vista in Fort Lauderdale. We’d had enough of the hurricanes, knew there was trouble coming in real estate there, and in general were ready to get out. We were largely set on going back to Atlanta. But as we kept going back to look at houses it just didn’t seem right, no longer a fit.

The angelic one and her cycling crazy hubby suggested Winter Park, where they’d met and married, lived previously, and spoke of fondly and often. I’d never heard of it. Secrets can often be wonderful.

When we thought we were going back to Atlanta and told our then-neighbors of that plan, we were teased and mocked: ‘Oh, you’re going to miss the beach.’ ‘Oh, you’re going to miss the palm trees.’ ‘Oh, you’re going to miss the weather.’

We visited Winter Park and were soon under contract with a house. Rolling the dice was what we did when we moved to Fort Lauderdale. You’re just never quite sure. But we did it again. Any place you move, no matter how nice, it takes a while for it to feel like home, like you truly belong there. But when we announced to those same mocking neighbors that we’d be moving to Winter Park instead of Atlanta, the mocking ceased, replaced with the same response again and again and again: ‘Oh, I love Winter Park.’

It’s curious when a new home you’re so unfamiliar with receives such somber, serious endorsement from others, especially when they’d so derided Atlanta previously. I remember our hydrangea-bearing guest going on about the Colony Theater, the brick streets, the trees, the farmers market where she loved to go in the winter, wearing her favorite sweater sets and other wool clothing items. Always interesting the things the mind retains when so much else is forgotten.

Now, nearly seven years later, I realize how she undersold it. Yet, I’m not sure just how you’d best share all that I find special and amazing about our new home. I was out this morning gathering input for my new Park Style column and considering that. A gorgeous blue sky above, the air warm but not hot, shop doors open all along the street. I wandered in and out, joking and recording local opinions.

Someone last week told me they wanted my job. I stopped for a moment to consider what exactly that is. Whatever it’s become, I’m anxious to make more money at it, but admittedly, I’m the happiest right now I’ve been with anything I’ve tried to do or accomplish in my life. I told the outgoing editor of the Observer recently that writing these days is very different than when I was younger. Writing was work, took effort. I’m thinking it’s the years of life experience, the attainment of real perspective that has made it easy. It could also be the subject matter, the subject(s). Ease comes with true belief in what you are writing.

I started my website last year wanting to be the opposite of the large national “deal” websites. They’re now waning, with most of the people I know annoyed by the daily onslaught of emails announcing half off Brazilian waxes in Deltona and go-kart rides in Kissimmee. Local was the essence of what I wanted to do and promote. It’s now the exclusive focus, and I have some plans I hope to bring to fruition in the new year to do just that.

There are people all around the world who live some place because of a job, a responsibility. It is the fortunate few who live exactly where they wish to be. Winter Park was a delightful accident for us in 2006. In late 2012, and coming into 2013, there is truly no other place I’d wish to call home.

Merry Christmas, Winter Park, and best wishes for the coming new year.