Common Nature

Content advisory: the following images portray animal decomposition and a messy (though not scatological) plumbing mishap, respectively.

This is the very first photo I took in the process of exploring my new surroundings in Florida. I was recovering from a lengthy illness and a lengthy road trip, and coming to terms with a discombobulating succession of life upheavals; accordingly, I began with a local animal in no condition to evade me.

This roughly crow-sized bird (species and cause of death unknown) lay in an oddly heraldic position suggesting a necromancer’s coat of arms, on the disheveled curb strip of a business that was both recovering from Hurricane Ian and changing hands—likewise in a state of transition. The red spot at heart level is a dried wild fruit of some sort.

Taken on 4 June 2023 at 19:48 U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time:

( Fined_be_ye_who_move_my_bones. )

Some while later, I suffered a clog of mysterious blue-gray residue in my bathroom sink (don’t worry; it’s long since been dealt with, although not conclusively explained)—and was fascinated by the delicate poinsettia-like radial pattern created when the water finally receded.

Taken on 20 July 2023 at 14:16 U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time:

( Mystery_plumbing_sludge. )

Strelitzia reginae in bloom in a bedding of white seashells, with low-growing palms and (agave?) also visible in the flower bed, taken on 18 August 2023 at 15:43 US Eastern Daylight Savings Time:





The mature male specimen of Homo sapiens var. euroamericanus was a passerby and did not give his express consent, but the color of his T-shirt coincided so perfectly with the blue nectary petals of the flower that I decided to keep him; the measure I took to respect his privacy somehow completes the composition.)

The temperate Euro-diasporic spring/summer/autumn/winter model really doesn’t apply where I’m living now (nor in the tropics in general.)

By way of creative tax, have a haiku about habitat dissonance:

You sweet winter child,
You make Florida shiver!
Put a sweater on!