I recently recalled my earliest memory of Miami by looking at pictures of myself holding a coconut in my great uncle’s back yard in Miami Shores when my family flew down for the holidays. I am wearing a one-piece green bathing suit with a matching skirt holding a red umbrella in one picture and a coconut in another photo.

There were funny family stories that grew grand about how my grandfather gave up his U.S. post office job and Union stewardship in Boston to help his brother in the jalousie window business in Miami in the early 1950’s. Four kids piled into a station wagon with the oldest left behind in the priesthood. The youngest, a newborn, flew with my grandmother. They rented a house in Miami shores with no air conditioning. The mosquitoes were plentiful. My grandmother was not happy having left all her friends behind in Boston and begged my grandfather to buy their house back up in Massachusetts.

Soon my great uncle began talking about expanding the business to Cuba and tried persuading my grandfather to run the office there. My grandmother said she would not go. There were already rumblings of political issues there. It was 1952. The family spent a year battling bugs and heat in Miami before my grandmother got her way and the whole family moved back to Boston. My grandfather had to beg for his old job back at the Post Office and had lost his seniority. The Cuban Revolution took place shortly after they left Miami.

Ten years later, my parents spent their honeymoon at the Fontainebleau on Miami Beach. At the time, honeymoons on Miami Beach were popular. The wedding announcement showed one picture of my parents boarding the plane to Miami and another of my mother in her gown with an 18-inch waist.

Then there were the trips to the Keys in my grade school years when we rented a bungalow on the beach and cooked lobsters and played in the sand. I tried to run up a coconut palm that was semi horizontal so I could get to the coconuts and landed squarely on my rear. There were also trips to Fort Lauderdale in the late 70’s with my father when he wanted to take my brothers and I to Sea World and the Mai Kai and other attractions.

Coconut Memories, Coconut Dreams

Later memories include a trip to Fort Lauderdale beach in the early 80’s when relatives invited me to visit during Spring break. I experienced the “strip” with my brothers but wanted to leave when the college boys were advancing aggressively.

I came to visit South Florida after college from NYC in 1989 after a year of working at temp jobs mostly in NYC. Had dreams of getting away from subways, crowds, high rents and noise and the feeling that I was barely surviving. Had dreams of uncrowded beaches, clean water, having enough money to afford my own apartment without roommates and owning a car. I had dreams of having medical insurance and a full-time job. Dreams like any other person that comes here from anywhere in the world.

I first landed in Broward and started working in a public law library as a clerk. Had a used car called a Justy that I made payments on and a studio in a quadroplex with broken AC and stains in the rug. I attended graduate classes at night paying for one class a semester out of my salary. The Cooper-tone Girl still hung from a building on 5th Street and Biscayne Boulevard and I looked for her when I visited Miami and South Beach. The hum and diversity of Miami spoke to me, and I moved further South to North Miami in 1993, visiting South Beach every weekend. Parts of Miami Beach were still God’s waiting room. Some of the gorgeous colorful boutique hotels on Miami Beach were run down. Ocean Drive was starting to hit its stride.

The cocaine cowboys were in the not-so-distant past. Burdines was the only major Department Store on South Beach and Wolfie’s Restaurant was still popular with locals on the corner of 20th and Collins right next to the old Miami Beach Library. In the 90’s, you could go thrifting on Miami Beach, get a good Cuban sandwich, visit the Artist’s Studio on Lincoln Road and enjoy the beach for under $20. Books and Books still stood on the Lincoln Road Mall having taken the spot from the Alliance Cinema. The nightlife was picking up in several spots and there were sightings of celebs like Madonna, Versace, Gloria Estefan, David Beckham and others.

In 1996 I began working at the public library at 21st and Collins Ave and interacted with the characters that frequented that neighborhood. I met what would become one of my oldest and best friends and mentors at that library. It was soon after I started working there that Versace was fatally shot by a stalker while leaving the News Cafe. The news reverberated through everyone and everything. That day marked a loss for me regarding Miami Beach. Something changed in my perception as South Beach continued to gentrify and become more touristy. It was the same year Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died so there was lots of sadness in the news. I promoted to a manager at another branch library a brief time later.

My love affair with South Florida did not end there though. I met my native Miami-an husband at work in 2000, who introduced me to an abundance of Florida history, South Florida gardening and the Florida Everglades. I found my husband and my calling in public libraries.

Although some of my dreams and photos are damaged or faded as there have been bumps in the road, I have few regrets. I have two of my own coconut trees now that I extract water from every Summer. I enjoy the lush landscape of my neighborhood, talking about the traffic in Winter and heat in Summer and the vibrant literary and art scene here. And I never miss Art Basel or the Miami Book Fair. I am working hard past 60 years old to be able to live here into retirement and old age, fighting to keep my place as I lose my youth and my eyesight. Coconut dreams are not as affordable as coconut memories but the sweet taste of coconut water, a cafecito and the breeze rustling through the palms will keep me here a little longer.