Starting all over

Three moves in the past two months. Unpacking and stacking in time for the holiday cheer. Just need twinkle lights for the outdoor tree.

full circle

There was a period when my family dynamic wasn't so dynamic. When we as a family had left Siesta Key and moved closer to town, to 1632 Floyd Street. It lasted for about 2 years, from 1957 through '58. 

This past month, after being washed away by Helene and blown by Milton, Sandy and I have repeated the same.  We left the island, but this time permanently. For me all told, having been there some seventy years, now found Floyd once again. We took an annual lease on an unfurnished cottage, just a few houses down from that nearly forgotten early memory. 

On Floyd, my father had walked away from my mother, from all of us - and about the same time, my mother seriously took to drink.

Luckily, I carried on my phone a few of those early family photos, now saved, that I had previously copied. Most of our family albums were lost during those two big floods. And today, we signed that new lease. Now some 66 years later, while me being the last of my family, I'm back there living on that same street.

 

My mother looking not so happy. She wasn't. 1957

 

 

 

My next-door neighbor A.J. and I, selling lemonade on the corner of Floyd & Orange Ave. 1957

 

I loved costumes and outfits. A bull outfit my mother had made for me for a school play. 1957

 

As the family divided, my older sister Caren, soon was sent off to boarding school. While my mother and I, later would move back to Siesta Key - just the two of us. (My sister and I at Floyd Street in late 1958).

All Souls Day

November 2nd;

Weeks after two multiple disasters, with Hurricane Helene and Milton, hundreds of black, unmarked "double-haulers" are noticed roaming about town - presumably collecting all those lost forgotten souls. All Souls Day - a day, a reminder to celebrate and honor the past.

Big Cypress Reservation

Seminole Tribe of Florida

Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki   "A place to learn, A place to remember"

Middle school student from Ahfachkee (translated meaning; 'Happy'), K thru 12 school. 

(Forgot her name, lost my notes)

 

 

 

Ada "Tater" (Bird Clan, matriarchal).

The red handpaint, painted across the mouth, is a symbol that is used in solidarity with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement (MMIW).