Like most love affairs, this one has changed over the years. Growing up as a child in Florida, I took for granted the paradise in which I had been born. I grew up in the 70’s when childhood was still free and safe. In the summer my brothers, sister and I would spend the hot days roaming the woods hunting for gopher turtles and snakes and any other adventures we could find. No one worried about us. We would only come home for lunch and dinner. The summer curfew was to be home when the street lights came on. We did not worry about the heat or bugs or strangers. The only real pestilence was the sand spurs (we never wore shoes). We got dirty and loved it. If we got hot, we would play in neighbor’s sprinklers and drink from their hoses. No one minded. It was truly a wonderful childhood.

Then came the teen years, I started to get annoyed at the heat. I couldn’t wait for the short winters and cool days. As a family we made many trips to the North Carolina Mountains. I hated to leave them and once home longed for the mountains and the cooler climate. Coming home Florida seemed flat and boring. At this stage in the affair I had fallen out of love.

I went off to college in the mountains thinking how wonderful it would be to actually live there and for a time it was wonderful. The cool air, the gorgeous vistas, the snow, it was like a dream come true. Then as the winter grew on I began to miss seeing something green, anything green. I began to miss the sunshine and wearing shorts and flip flops in December. I grew tired of always being cold. Just in time came the winter break. Driving south things began to show green and low and behold, Florida was still green. I did not realize it yet but I was falling back in love.

I married and had children like most people do. But it was a different time. Kids no longer could roam free. Most women worked and most kids were in day care. We started to do more outdoor activities to show our kids some of what we grew up with. We went boating, fishing and took day trips. One particular day trip was to Cross Creek, a small town near Gainesville where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Yearling, called home. Her home and grounds have been preserved as a State Park. We took a tour of her cracker home with tin roof and screened porches and the surrounding farm and orange grove. She had moved to this remote town to write her novels. She hoped to support herself with the proceeds from the grove.

It was there I purchased one of her books Cross Creek. It is a book that tells of her trials and triumphs at the creek. She tells wonderful tales of the folk living there. But I was most impacted by her love of Florida. Here was a "Yankee" woman (of her own description)living on the most meager means, tested by all the rough elements the Florida wilderness could throw at her, but she had fallen in love with Florida. She loved the grove and the sweet fragrance of the orange blossoms, the lakes, swamps and creek, the cabbage palms raising their heads above the hammock, the Magnolias with their large white blossoms and jade colored leaves. She loved the birds and native animals, she loved to fish and hunt and cook. Her love was contagious and I found myself loving this land as much as she. It was then I realized what a wonderful place in which I had been born. She wrote, "For this is an enchanted land" and I have to agree. I was as smitten as Marjorie was with Florida; the lakes and streams and hammocks, oceans and trees, the huge live oaks with the Spanish moss swaying in the wind, the cabbage palms on the pastures.

The hot days are tempered with the afternoon thunderstorms, the cumulous clouds billowing up into the blue sky. They are an awesome sight to behold. Florida is the lighting capitol of the country and I have been through several hurricanes. Sometimes living here can be fearsome. But I am bound to this land and could not think of living anywhere else. I have read all of Marjorie’s books, some several times. She is my favorite author. She once asked "who owns Cross Creek?" Her question could just as well been "who owns Florida?" Her answer was "It belongs to the wind and rain, to the sun and seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time".

This Florida which Marjorie loved, this Florida which I love, this is my home. The Good Lord knew what he was doing all along by making this the place of my birth. I encourage anyone who lives here and loves this fair State like I do to read her books. Cross Creek is a good place to start. When the Whippoorwill is also a favorite which I highly recommend. I invite you to visit her home in Cross Creek. Who knows, you may fall in love as well.