Beaches

At the intersection of Atlantic and 1st, right down near the One Ocean Pavilion and a handful of other beach haunts, there is literally a Starbucks on either side of the road. Of course, this is along the Jacksonville pilgrimage route to the beach; Atlantic Boulevard used to be the only road running out here, which is why the founded-in-1939 historic Beach Road Chicken restaurant is on this road instead of the now-parallel-running Beach Blvd. This is how people used to get from the rivers and the center of commerce, over the Intracoastal Waterway, to the beach, and this is the way I have decided to ride today.

Getting out to the beach via Atlantic is a hard 18 miles of box stores and fighting with cars, even though every mile contains a few of the diamond-shaped yellow signs that show a happy bicycle on the street with the words "SHARE THE ROAD" beneath it. Today, this bicycle is feeling dichotomous: happy to be free and off to exciting places, annoyed as I pass another of these signs and a motorist honks at me in chastisement for taking up three feet on the rightmost of three lanes. Yarg.

Getting to the beach, though, is a sort of haven. Suddenly the environment shifts in a bunch of ways. Obviously the cars can't keep going East--there's an ocean in front of them--so they peel off down A1A to Ponte Vedra or Mayport and I hop two blocks deeper into the beachy pink and yellow color scheme to 1st Street, one block from the water, nestled among beach houses, with plenty of palm-tree roadblocks to stop cars and keep the street open for walkers and cyclists like me. After feeling I had to suck in my stomach to make room for these cars, here I can ride with no handlebars.

The beach also has a change in populous. After seeing relatively few young people in Jacksonville proper, young folks simply walk around at the beach. Couples walking and tanning at the same time (no one bothers to wear a shirt), a beefy terrier on a leach pulling his owner behind on a skateboard, etc. And everyone, everyone is in beach shape.

But back to Starbucks. Why one on either side of the road? Why one stand-alone, ostentatious drive-thru store looking across the divide to a little one in the mini strip-mall, the signs in the window and the words "Starbucks Coffee" overhead the only proclamations of its true purpose from its diminutive, cookie-cutter strip-mall frame?

I am feasting upon words; excuse me. Suffice to say, I've filmed in front of this stand-alone Starbucks before, spent hours here, and had no clue this other one was across the street. It reminded me of an African watering hole: all of these animals migrating across the Serenhgetti when the rains shift elsewhere, all stopping at the few watering holes available between points A and B. This leads not only to dangerous cross-sections of the animal kingdom--with lions and elephants and stuff drinking at the same bar--but also leads to a few packed tourist establishments along the way. I can't believe that the giant oases we see on Planet Earth are the only ones along the way, and can only picture the local lemurs, standing by their own lemur-sized Starbucks with teacups in their hands, looking out at the crowded commotion across the street and tsk-tsking as one of them squeaks; that is to say, as one of them says in the bemused language of their kind: "Tourists".

these animals migrate across the plain when the seasons change, because water dries up in one place and pours down in another. But in order to get there, they have to cross vast spaces, finding whatever water they can along the way, which leads for dangerous combinations of animals in one place. Lions and elephants and such crowd into one Starbucks, while you know the locals, the meerkats, or something, have this tiny waterhole all of their own that nobody seems to notice, and just laugh, in their meerkat way

Málaga rains

Málaga rains and Sally ushers the dogs into their blanketed, pillow-filled shelters under the tables outside. It is the first rain since we've been here and then some, and though it's not heavy it is continuous, hopefully filling up our several parched wells.

We have no fear, because Ryan has a new nickname. Even if the waters burst from the heavens, if the clouds that envelop our little abode in mist were to liquefy, we don't even need a life preserver because we know who Ryan is. After discussing celebrity lookalikes, how I get Jake Gyllenhaal and Jim Carey and Ian gets Woody Allen for some reason, we now know why Ryan hangs around in a bathing suit, wants to go to EMT school, likes to speak in a German or Austrian accent, and probably conceals an innate desire to sing and dance. Ian points and exclaims: "You look like David Hasselhoff!"

Climbing a mountain like ascending a staircase

We are rugged and awesome. Day by day we tread mountain paths fit for goats, with goats, to pluck olives and almonds, and provide animals with acorns, which will in turn provide them with life. There is so little water here that we don't bother to flush the toilet, we wash it down manually with the dark, cumulonimbus water which pours freely into our changing, chosen receptacles from the open pipe of the washing machine. We knife and devour prickly pears straight from the cactus and drink water we bottle ourselves from the stream at the top of the tallest mountain around.

Yes, we are awesome because of this, and more. Goats may tread this land and feed on it even when there is no grazing––on bark and twigs and such––but only we can claw out the rugged earth and conform its rocks to our stone walls. While mastering these things, a piece of clothing may rebel against us; it may say, "Nay! Let us not be put to such a test!" But when it agrees with a stick or stone that they should meet and tear, we subdue the troublesome clothing with thread and make it one piece again.

Actually, the earth was already cut for us, but the stones were heavy enough that we could only pile them with much gusto and manliness, the three of us, Ryan, Ian, and myself being the only human males on the farm, the women off somewhere else. When cigarettes are smoked here, though not by Ryan or me, they are only hand-rolled, and my forearms ache with a day's worth of hefting stones and mixing concrete.

To contribute to our hardcore awesomeness at this farm, we know Merav, a traveling Israeli who, like us, left making goats' cheese to come to Spain. In her case, she worked with troubled kids, teaching them simple life principles through agricultural labor and the stewardship of animals. In philosophy, she wants to be like Zorba the Greek, and though the book has topped my reading list for a while, I have not read it. She tells me about how Zorba worked random jobs, did random things, and kept life simple, enjoying every little moment along the way. As she speaks of Zorba, one can detect that, in her life, she would love to marry a man like Zorba and live in a mud-and-stone house that they built. Simple.

In many ways our lot is like the Old West. We are isolated, at least from the city; waterless to the extent that we took our first showers yesterday, after five days, and wear the same dirty, durable jeans; we live among scrub brush and hardy, centuries-old olive trees. When Ian and Sally moved here from England, there was no water at all, forcing them to construct a network of wells. They carved the road out of rock to get to our house from the main road, and when someone comes toward us, our doorbell is a pack of dogs, whose ears and bodies perk up with attention to what we cannot hear.

Now they have electricity, and even receive internet for free after allowing the company to use their land, if needed, to provide better access. But if you turn your back on the house, and block out the clicking hum of the power lines, then it would not be so surprising to see revolutionary pistoleros coming down the road, or perhaps a group of marching pikemen in their bright, feudal tunics, their regality suggesting that the local lord had a money, influence, and a penchant for fashion.