Sanibel Journal

When Roger and Lucia Wilcox would come to their winter home on Sanibel Island in the 1950s and 1960s, they led a relatively quiet life.  People on Sanibel were aware that the couple was well-known in the East Hampton, New York, artists’ world, where they often entertained and organized events.  In Long Island, their names were frequently in the newspapers.  But Sanibel people respected their privacy. Lucia Anavi was born in Beirut in 1902.   Her mother was French, and her father was Lebanese.    Early in life, she started to become a gifted painter, sculptor, and cook.   So at age 14, she left home to live in Paris. There she became a part of a legendary group of artists, including Piet Mondrian, Picasso, Marc Chagall, Carlos Montoya, Max and Jimmy Ernst, and many more.   Some of them encouraged her to go to night school, so she enrolled in the Académie Ronsard. In 1938, she and her partner at the time, Fernand Leger, left Paris for New York...

On Mother’s Day in 2016, we saw some marvelous things.  There were several of them, these strange little creatures, moving about gracefully and silently in the water beneath and around our dock.  My husband and I had never seen anything quite like them.  We’d only been living on Dinkins Bayou for about a year, and before that we had not lived on salt water.  We had never seen such a weird and beautiful creature that swam like a sting ray, by flapping its “wings,” which are called parapodia . The next day, I posted photos of the creatures on Facebook and asked my knowledgeable friends, “What is this little sea creature?” Mottled Sea Hare or Sooty Sea Hare (Aplysia fasciata) in Dinkins Bayou.   Sea hares vary in color according to the color of the algae that they eat. The answers came quickly:   sea hares, a.k.a. sea slugs.   Wildlife educator Richard Finkel replied, “Sea hares.   They come to shore in spring to deposit their eg...

September 30, 2016 -- My new Autumn routine includes a 3-mile walk early in the morning, in addition to my usual 2-kilometer swim in the pool at mid-day.  The walk always includes at least a few minutes on the beach; the rest is along the shared-use path. If conditions are good (low-ish tide, no rainstorms threatening, not too much hot sun), I will walk on the beach the entire way to the trail head on Silver Key.  There, I can either take the trail or continue along the beach. Continuing along the beach requires some nimble maneuvering around, through, and over some dead trees -- trees whose lives were claimed by the Gulf of Mexico. Looking out at the Gulf from the opening at Old Blind Pass this morning The great reward, after maneuvering through the trees-turned-into-driftwood-statues, is that I reach the point where Clam Bayou/Old Blind Pass now meet the Gulf of Mexico.  For years, this meeting of the waters did not exist; the sandy beach separated the bayous f...

April 16, 2016 -- In April 2013, this is what I said about mangroves during the "mission moment" at church: When you live in this part of Florida, you know or you soon learn that native plants are important to our ecosyste m. Mangrove trees are true natives, and they are our most valuable coastal resource. Biologically, they form the structure for a complex ecosystem that is the link between the land and the sea. These mangroves stabilize our shorelines. Their root systems slow water flow, and that facilitates the deposit of organic material and sediment that provide nutrients that are the basis of the marine life food chain. Excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are filtered from coastal waters by mangroves, and are incorporated into the leaves, branches and root systems of the trees. Mangroves are important to fish. About 85 to 90 percent of all local commercial and recreational fish depend on mangroves for food and shelter. Other marine organisms attach to...

Sunrise on January 31, as life was beginning to ease. February 20, 2016 -- We weathered yet another storm.  During Christmas weekend, Tom suffered from fevers; when Monday morning came, we went directly to the doctor's office, and from there Tom was sent by ambulance to the hospital near downtown Fort Myers. This time his stay was longer -- two weeks, altogether.  The hospital and its parking lot became very familiar.  I noted the mature, luxuriant coonties in the parking lot's "islands."  So these are what our baby coonties will grow up to resemble!  Cute little cycads, they are. The baby coonties I told Tom about the mature coonties in the parking lot, and a host of other outdoor sights that I witnessed during those two weeks.  He was not only indoors for that entire time, but he was in the ICU for four nights and five days of those two weeks.  The ICU is a wild and crazy place, with all the alarms sounding and people coming and going. ...

Sunrise on December 18 December 22, 2015 -- As the blank page stares me in the face, all I can think is that this is a "Sanibel Journal" and so much of what has been happening in our lives isn't about Sanibel at all.  You see, we've had medical adventures during the past month.  Tom had a bout of a rare, deadly hemolytic anemia, but he is better now that he spent five days in the hospital and is able to go through his regular chemotherapy for leukemia again.  His chemo makes him feel better, not worse, so long as he doesn't catch a cold while his immune system is suppressed by the drugs. After the hospital stay, this house on Dinkins Bayou was so nice to come home to.  Seeing the sunrise every morning instills a deep sense of well-being, and an acknowledgement that we weathered a storm.  We feel like we moved here in the nick of time.  Some of that feeling is because of practical matters like the elevator, which Tom uses frequently.  The res...

November 1, 2015 -- The painters are here.  The house has been stripped of its pseudo shutters, plantings have been cut away from its walls, and it is about to washed with pressurized water.  The house is getting the attention it deserves.  Soon it will be light gray, with a little brown and black here and there.  Gray, with the red tile roof -- Buckeye colors! Bill finished the travertine floor in the foyer during the week before my birthday.  His work is impeccable.  We look forward to his return! Then last week I celebrated making it to 60 all week long.  Already we had three parties to attend that week, so I didn't feel the need to have a birthday bash.  Already I had purchased a new computer and a new phone, so I didn't want any more presents. Besides, every day is a gift.  We love to wake up before sunrise so we can watch the bayou coming to life.  The water is loaded with fish, manatees, dolphins, and crabs.  Circular, ...

October 24, 2015 -- So much has changed for us since June 6, when I wrote "Finding the Unexpected" in this blog.  We sold our house on Old Banyan Way on July 3, and moved into the house on Coconut drive during the first five days of July.  On July 5, we left for Paris. When we returned from Paris on September 27, it was well after nightfall.  We could not see much of our "new" house until the next morning.  And oh what a glorious morning it was.  The sunrise was dramatic.  Most of the windows in our house face the sunrise. The six-hour time difference between Paris and Sanibel made it easy for us to rise in time for the show.  What a show it was! Sunrise on Dinkins Bayou on September 28. In the four weeks since then, we've been plugging away at working on the house, and having work done to the house.  Yesterday, the pool cage had 25 sections of screen as well as 48 bolts replaced. This work was miraculously completed just as the weather ...