Miami Shores: A Cultural Metaphore

Sometimes I'm brave enough to take Luciano out for an evening walk around our neighborhood. 

Miami Shores is such a strange area, it is completely indicative of the nature of Miami or maybe the western world. I'm not sure if I should be afraid or if I should feel okay and at one with my neighbors. There are definitely a few that say hello and smile and the rest are mostly Haitian and when you smile and say hello to them, I think they are scared. Maybe they are illegal and dubious, but a friendly smile isn't so hard to return.

The houses are the same, all of them seem to be from the 50s in that suburban dream style. I call these neighborhoods "Failed Optimism", because it was a dream for everyone to have a home, a yard, a car and the neighborhood all have decaying sidewalks and porches to sit on and talk with the neighbors and big front yards for bbqs and family activities. But now they are all cracked, their colors faded and the sod taken over by weeds or even dead. However, there are some houses here that have been well taken care of. The paint fresh, the lawn a landscape or tropical trees and fruit and an aura beaming out new life and harmonious visions. I suspect the difference to be because of one thing, owning or renting. 

We rent, but our house is covered with greenery and fruit trees, so no one may suspect. But the house is terrible. Termite infested, leaky roof, lime eaten fixtures, rotting bathroom, and who knows probably lead pipes. We request things to be done, but those landlords don't care, they just want the money. They should do a TV show called house swap, where the landlords have to live in their rented houses and the tenants get to live in the landlords house. But we settle for it because the yard is great, it is a piece of what Miami could be. There are hundreds of varieties of plants (a lot of them edible), beautiful bamboo, coral, papaya, avocado, star fruit, ginups or mamicillo, Chinese plum, mangos, and some others.

But really we decided on this place becasue we were so desperate to get out of the heat of my warehouse in Little Haiti. After a year of a lunatic landlord, leaky roof, bugs, oh wait those are the same problems with this house. But all is forgiven in our current house because of one vital thing: AIR CONDITIONING. Yes, that's right, as long as the termites and the leaky roof and rotting bathroom are kept cool we deal with it.  I was four months pregnant, just returned from Burning Man and an across country trip and returning to a hot, baking warehouse was not an option. And so it was that we found ourselves in a hidden Miami garden. 

In September it will be a year that we have been living in this 1905 house, which is the size of a guest cottage, and it is time to move out. Work is almost nil and Luciano is ready to see the world.  We are hoping that our escape will find us via opportunity.