‘So it has come to this,” I thought when my spouse proposed a trip to Florida in merciless February. Were those metal walkers and a retirement condo that I saw lurching toward us? In fact, my husband, Roger, was his usual prescient self. Now that the children had moved out — more or less — we were no longer tied to their school schedules. For the first time in eons, we could take advantage of reading week at the university where Roger teaches, and go south, unencumbered by offspring and unfettered by anxiety about what they might be doing home alone.
But where could two Disney-phobes go in Florida? He had an answer for that as well: Sanibel and Captiva, two of the barrier islands off the state's Gulf Coast, are an easy drive across a five-kilometre causeway from the mainland at Fort Myers. The islands, which are linked by a bridge, promised a respite from fast food and faster living. They also offered low-stress activities such as shell-collecting, birding and bicycling for non-golfers who hate staking themselves out on a towel to soak up rays.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh tried to make sense of her calamitous life by writing A Gift From the Sea on Captiva in 1955, a meditation that became an international bestseller in the pre-Betty Friedan era. “The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient,” Lindbergh wrote. “One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea.”
It sounded good — as a respite if not a lifestyle. So I signed on, especially after Roger promised to book the flights and rent the car.
We arrived in Fort Myers on a Friday night, ravenous after a Spartan Air Canada flight from Toronto, and headed straight to the Sanibel-Palm Steakhouse, a restaurant that offers enough grilled beef in a single serving to feed a nuclear family.
No half-measures for us: We waddled out of the restaurant and drove to the Barbara B. Mann Center at Edison College to catch The Temptations. The Motown group is more aged even than our 30-year relationship, but the members can still groove to ancient hits such as My Girl and How Sweet It Is.
There were lots of sheepish men grabbing their armrests in the audience as their wives wriggled and shrieked in the aisles as the Temps flaunted their moves and grooves from the stage. But the crowd wasn't all boomers creakily revisiting their salad days. Two twentysomething girls in skimpy outfits in the row ahead looked like they were auditioning to be back-up singers. They knew all the words to songs that were popular long before they were born.
As for the Temptations, they were amazingly agile, considering one of them — Otis Williams, aged 66 — was a member of the original quintet when it formed back in 1961.
Exhausted just by watching Otis gyrate, we arrived at the Sanibel Inn in the dark and sank wearily into bed, forgoing the opportunity to displace the falsettos replaying in our heads with a live jazz beat emanating from Ellington's, the hotel's dining room and bar.
The sound of lapping waves woke us, and we got our first glimpse of the beach. The islands' spectacular white sands are encrusted with shells washed around the Gulf of Mexico and swept up on shore. Searching for them is such a preoccupation that the local stores sell small mesh containers on long sticks (rather like upside-down butterfly nets), and residents often succumb to the “Sanibel Stoop” from walking bent over, avidly searching for a Junonia or a banded tulip to add to their collections.
