Mexico Beach, Florida

I recently read the book Florida by Lauren Groff, who describes the title state as “an Eden of dangerous things.” Perhaps unintentionally, I read this book while I was in Florida for New Year’s Eve this past December. My husband’s family very graciously invited us to join them the week after Christmas at the beach house they rented in Cape San Blas, Florida. Cape San Blas is located on the Florida Panhandle in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by the nearby towns of Port St. Joe, Mexico Beach, and Panama City.

An Eden of dangerous things. As someone who spent many childhood summers in Florida, I never considered Florida in this way—“dangerous.” Florida was anything but dangerous to me, with its white sand beaches and charming, colorful houses dotting an aquamarine coastline.

But Florida is so much richer and deeper than that, which is what Groff aims to explore in her novel, and which is what Matt and I experienced on our trip this past December.

In October 2018, Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle. Many towns bordering the Gulf Coast were devastated. We learned from a local that 2,500 people used to live in the Mexico Beach area, but after the hurricane, only 500 residents stayed. Twenty-two people were confirmed dead, but many, many more are still missing.

As we crossed the border into northern Florida from Alabama (still about sixty miles from the coast), Matt and I immediately started to pass fields of trees that looked like a giant had stepped on them. Their broken trunks were stripped of branches and those that had not fallen down looked like they were about to. We saw trailers overturned; walls ripped off homes, exposing mattresses and toilets and sinks; piles of rubble; roofs completely wrenched off; clothes hanging from tree branches; glass windows shattered. And this was two months after the hurricane hit.

Since, there has been hardly any federal aid (especially with the government shutdown) to help people clean up and rebuild. The locals that we interacted with were optimistic but exhausted. They told us: “we’ll rebuild, we’ll come back stronger.” And I believe them.

When Matt and I visited a coffee shop in nearby Apalachicola, Florida, we saw a poster that read: “We are the Forgotten Coast.” But the word “forgotten” was crossed out, replaced by the word “resilient.”

Out of respect for the community, I’ve chosen to attach only one photo to this post: the final sunset of 2018, a gleaming array of orange and pink over a green-blue sea. On that calm, December day, as we prepared to toast goodbye to 2018 and welcome in the New Year, it was nearly impossible to imagine this same sky turning black and this same ocean turning deadly.

But maybe that’s what Lauren Groff meant when she called Florida both “Eden” and “dangerous.” The essence, the spirit, and the resilience of Florida are strung up in this juxtaposition: a state that knows both terrible destruction and unbelievable beauty.

Please consider donating to provide hurricane relief for these communities. Feel free to follow this link, which lists several reliable places to give.