The Spontaneous Moment [Miami]

It's hard for me to find an angle from which to approach my recent visit to Miami -- not only because I can't imagine a city more different from Philadelphia, or even London, but because the contrast extended to my time spent there, my own private/public divide. The sprawling highways, the neon and Art Deco high rises, the constant presence of luxury cars never felt palpable, even when viewed from the street and not through the windshield of my friend's Thunderbird. And yet back at her apartment complex, I felt myself imposing the other side of the cliche, a sort of Southern hospitality in the casual formality of neighbors' greetings ('Hello ladies, y'all have a good day'), and a hazy resignation in the willows bending over the canal behind the building.

This is what happens when you visit a city for not even three days; it becomes the living version of your preconceptions. This was the case for Amsterdam as well, which I remember as the cold still water of its brick-lined canals and the velvet air of its coffee shops, with a few museums thrown in for good measure. In the end Rotterdam gave me a more personal view of the Netherlands, because of my limited conception of its landscape before I arrived. I imagine another city or town in Florida would have the same effect, balancing the mind's postcard-picture that Miami helped me to build.

In a hostel somewhere near Canberra, Australia, I picked up a book called The Intelligent Tourist -- I have long since put it down, somewhere equally random, and so my recollection of it is vague at best. The author, a highly educated academe of some sort, wrote with the purpose of opening the reader's eyes to the 'proper' way to travel: research an area before you arrive, learn about the local history and politics, become familiar with the literature (and the language, even in a basic sense). This knowledge should allow the educated traveler to veer off the highways of tourist traffic and explore some 'little-known gems', thus bolstering the cultural value of the journey. To varying degrees I've tried to follow his directions, as they're easy enough for any bookworm, even if in some ways they impose another kind of tunnel vision, preventing spontaneity and surprise -- but in fact most of the time I travel with an able guide, and often allow their interests to frame my view.

So, I could easily list an inventory of objects/experiences accrued during my brief stay:

~1 banana margarita
~1 hour browsing at independent bookstore (Books and Books in Coral Gables)
~1 museum visit (MOCA)
~1 bathroom stop at a swanky hotel (The Biltmore)

Etc. But that's what diaries are for. Instead I'd rather focus on that spontaneous moment that, happily, closed my visit. Having a last beer in the mild weather on J.'s balcony, I was startled out of my lethargy when she jumped out of her chair, shouting about manatees. We'd heard they made appearances in the canal, but in five months she'd never seen any, so I hadn't counted on it. But as we peered into the still, brackish water we could make out a grayish shape moseying its way into view.

This is that tricky moment -- the moment when cliche beckons again, in phrases like 'childlike wonder', 'magic creature'. Perhaps I can take a lesson from William Carlos Williams and state it plainly: We ran down to the dock after calling another friend, who joined us. We fed the manatee freshwater from a hose left there for that purpose, with some help from a more experienced neighbor who directed us in a housedress from her balcony. We threw bagged lettuce into the water, which the manatee nosed without much interest. Its mouth was like the mouth of a cow, big nostrils (and skin flaps, like eyelids, to cover them!) and whiskers. You could feel the pressure in the hose as it sucked down the water. My friend J. snapped a photo. I finished my beer and went to the airport.