Spring Lake — craig davidson

Our Airbnb was a single elegant room, with a queen bed, a full-size bathroom, and a kitchenette within a large house. It felt like a small well-appointed hotel room. There were two other rentable rooms on the opposite side of the house. It was designed in the 1970’s by an architecture professor from NYU. The current owner is also an architect, was one of his students and helped his professor design it while he was in school. Twelve years ago, he purchased the house from his professor.

It was a mix of Prairie Style and Florida vernacular — a 6000 square foot, one-story home with a beige stucco exterior in an older suburban Orlando neighborhood. The low profile, flat roof, wide eaves, large entry overhangs, and huge expanse of windows that overlooked the backyard was distinct from nearby homes. There was an acre of lawn in back that stretched to the edge of Spring Lake, a dock, two kayaks, a compact boathouse with fishing gear and life jackets, a pool, a pool pavilion for entertaining, and a privacy wall on one side. It had an extensive terracotta patio that surrounded the pool and the entire perimeter of the house too, which felt Spanish, or Italian.

My wife likes to kayak and hoped she could during our stay. I wasn’t as interested because any inland body of water in Florida has the potential for a disastrous encounter with a reptile. I’ve read too many stories about people and pets, often a Pomeranian, being surprised and drug into murky waters by alligators and giant snakes. People assume it only happens in the Everglades, or other swampy borderland terrain, but it happens in urban areas and neighborhood developments with water too. She rolled her eyes when I brought it up because this wasn’t the first time I’ve mentioned it. “It’s never stopped you from hiking in the mountains.” “What?” “Possible encounters with wild animals like bears, mountain lions and badgers.” “No, it hasn’t, but somehow it’s different. Somehow being attacked on land sounds better than being dragged into the water, drowned and then consumed, with my shoes and hat eventually popping up and floating on the surface of the lake hours later.”

She asked the owner of the house if there were alligators and he said there weren’t any in Spring Lake because the residents in the neighborhood, especially ones who lived on the shore, keep a close eye on it. He was a friendly, interesting guy with a lot of great stories about his life, but I didn’t trust him regarding the presence of alligators. Maybe he didn’t really know and just wanted to sound like he was in the know. Unless he’s interacted with the lake personally and recently, I’m suspect. “I haven’t seen anything bigger than a small Iizard,” he said. Famous last words I thought. Also, he provided very nice kayaks for his guests, but they were quite dirty which indicated they hadn’t been used in quite a while. That alone begged the question which I didn’t ask, “Have these been docked for a while because there are alligators in the lake?” She trusted him, ignored my paranoia, and eventually found time to go for a long paddle. After twenty minutes she returned safe and smiling like she always does. She’s fearless like her father was.

To get around Orlando we rented a Tesla. Hertz was out of compact cars and had been for many weeks prior to our stay, so they were having a deal on them. We can’t afford a Tesla in real life, but we’re converts if we could. It was like driving an intuitive iMac strapped to a silent blue rocket. We enjoyed driving it and a few days in, we charged it at a super charging station near a shopping mall. It was at 35% which was still plenty for at least another day, but we decided to charge it that afternoon. We backed up to the streamlined tower next to another Tesla being charged and inserted the charger. It looked like a cross between a typical gas hose and nozzle configuration, but with a large three-pin attachment. It was as simple as plugging in our phones. It took about thirty minutes, so we ate our sandwiches, talked, and explored the navigation screen.

I’m undecided how my personal ‘cancel culture’ should work in this situation. I oppose Musk’s politics, how his employees are reportedly treated, and his general entitled arrogance, but the car is amazing. I’m all for canceling individuals and companies who exploit, harm, and kill people and culture, otherwise it’s on a case-by-case basis, with a sliding scale and a lot of grays. Sometimes canceling is crystal clear and other times it’s not. I was told by a friend who we invited over for dinner a few years ago, out of the blue and without context, that I shouldn’t support Picasso because of how he treated woman and a couple of other reasons I don’t recall. “Are you familiar with how he treated women?” I wasn’t. I appreciated the heads-up though — sounded like he was a huge ass. So, when I wrote this, I did some research and discovered she was right — he treated women badly. So, I wouldn’t recommend him to a friend for an intimate relationship if he was alive, or a humanitarian award, but his work was groundbreaking and changed art as we know it, plus I like it. I haven’t canceled him or his art. She can cancel him if she needs to, for that reason and whatever her other ‘real’ reasons are. Regarding our noiseless Tesla, I enjoyed driving it with my wife through the winter sun and palm trees while listening to Christmas songs on the road to her mom’s place.

Songs :: Winter Wonderland by Ella Fitzgerald, River by Joni Mitchell, I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Bing Crosby, Steady On by Shawn Colvin, 10:00pm and Blues Bird by Larry Carlton,