Black, White, and Brown

Post-racial: I don't think so. That's why these basketball games in Flamingo Park here in Miami Beach catch my eye. Here there are people of all colors, competing, shouting, laughing. Where else do we see black, white, and brown together? In the military? Not in our public schools, not in our neighborhoods.

As we get closer and closer to the presidential election, we will hear more from racists who oppose President Obama. 'He's not one of us', they say.

Up north this year, remembering the snowy winter of 2011, someone protected his trees. These are huge trees. They surround the property, each one shrouded in burlap. After sights like this, it's been freeing to bum around South Beach and see a man playing the violin in Flamingo Park.

And delightful to find this modest statue of Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. He looks thoughtful among the baobab trees in Collins Park. It's been a day for strolling through parks.

It must be especially lucky to touch wood when it's the wood of the baobab tree.

The post office on 13th Street is embellished with the statue of a fish.

It is, I suppose, unfair to compare north and south, but up north we tend to tighten up, hunch our shoulders against the cold, and prepare for the worst. Yet there is such a thing as overprotection. I wonder how much it cost to wrap those large trees.

Out Until Dark

It was freedom to walk away from my desk--work and worries--and go out in the middle of the afternoon while there was still plenty of light. These trees, one on each side of the entrance of a building on Lenox, grow full in unobstructed light, fill the scrappy front yard, and shade the worn facade. The woman in a pink sari came home.

I went on to the beach and walked north at low tide. Yellow flags at the lifeguard stations signaled rough water, danger, rip tide; purple flags signaled more danger from men of war and jelly fish. I picked my way. The surf was cold.

Feet back in Crocs, I walked west and bought a loaf of bread, west again to the thrift shop, where I bought forks. By the time I got to Flamingo Park, the lights were on. Five thirty, school night, parents, mostly mothers out with their children, people in motion laying out dinner.

The lights shone brighter. I watched children play soccer. By the time I got home it was dark, new moon invisible.