Top down, wind blowing the ends of her Lilly Pullitzer scarf behind her, Millie felt as though all of her worries were flying away with it. As soon as the Florida turnpike ended and the drive into the Florida Keys began, marked by the turquoise concrete barriers dividing the street, there was a noticeable difference in the color of the sky, in the brightness of the sun, and the relaxed way of life obvious from the "Closed" signs on the doors of the businesses whose owners were just as relaxed.
"Off fishing, I bet," she said aloud to herself with a smile.
As the only child of Cuban parents, who were exiled in 1959 after Fidel Castro took the happy island into his cruel grasp, Millie had heard countless times about the way the sky over Varadero Beach was unlike any other in the world. The generations before her, who had all grown up spending their summers at their beach houses on the pristine sands of Varadero Beach, always commented that the blue sky was a shade the imagination could not conjure if it tried; the sun shone so brightly, toasting their skin to a perfect caramel color, few clouds dared to interrupt the hues dancing across the sky, and the warmth that embraced their laughter made it the most beautiful beach in the world.
Millie had always rolled her eyes at this as a child, saying "The sky is the sky, everywhere in the world. The sun is only one. We all see it the same way. It's only that you remember it as Heaven on Earth, but it was just a beach."
On her first drive down to the Keys, she realized how wrong she had been. There was a different sky floating above this small paradise. The reflection of the sky on the ocean below, where blues, greens, teals, and colors that man had yet to name melded together with the rhythmic movement of the water created by the creatures below it's surface. This is what creates a sky that rivals Heaven: the beauty of the world below. The fact that the sun shines brighter, well, that is because there is nothing around to stand in it's way: no skyscrapers to hide behind, no concrete jungle to dull it's reflection. It is pure and simple. The homes and shops along the street are painted in bright, happy, carefree colors furthering the sense of joy Millie feels each time she makes the drive. A three-hour drive to the north of Miami would bore her to tears with the interminable, lonely, highway and tree-filled gaps between new housing developments. Driving south is another experience entirely.
The mangroves that divide the land and sea are mesmerizing. If not for these trees, with the most complex and puzzling root system she has ever seen, the islands would have long ago eroded back into the ocean from whence they came. Their multi-tentacled, web-like roots sprout from below an unassuming leafy top. These small trees ban together, intertwined like new lovers unable to part from each other, to create a barrier strong enough to protect the tiny islands from even the strongest of hurricanes. As powerful as they are, as intimidating as they may seem from below the water's surface where their roots shoot down in a maze nearly impossible to navigate, they are the motherly protectors of not only the land, but of all of the life on the island. Beneath their roots, in the dark, difficult to penetrate embrace of their arms is a refuge for hatchlings and small animals. All of this, and never would these trees, dare to take from the magnificent view of sparkling water, twinkling in the light of the proud sun showing off all of the unnamed colors.
Millie is so entranced by the magnificence of the changes in the beauty around her that before she knows it, she has pulled up to the house. She is so filled with anticipation, that she puts the car in park, purely out of habit, leaves the keys in the ignition and the driver's door wide open and runs up the front steps of the wood-siding clad, Keys style, ever welcoming home.
