Today's Picture Tells A Story finds me in Poinciana Florida vising my father and step-mother (though she's been a mother in my life for all but my first five years).
After a rough day of traveling yesterday, today was dedicated to relaxing and taking things easy, facilitated by a front of heavy rain that made going out a dubious prospect. That front brought with it a significant cold snap... by Florida standards at least. A cold January night in Florida is, of course, an unseasonably warm day back home in Maine.
The world here teams with life and color compared to the monochromatic New England winter, with its near-constant cloud cover, snow, and barrenness. Many days in the northeast, the only splash of color to be found is the evergreen trees, though those are more often than not white with snow themselves. Even winter sea is dark as ink against the gray sky.
That isn't to say that winter in the north can't be stunning in its starkness, it absolutely can. I'd be a strange "Winter" to think otherwise.
And Maine as a state can be so remarkable in its natural beauty as that it sometimes feel like cheating being a photographer there.
But the warmth and liveliness of more southern regions are easier on my spirits, as well as on my worn body, compared to the brutal cold and darkness of this season back home. That said, they are also a forbidden, if delectable, fruit.
Reality is that at the moment, it simply isn't feasible for my family to imagine living someplace like this. There are scant regions of the US that are safe and welcoming, legally or culturally, for queer and trans people.
We decided years ago that local protections (city/county) weren't reliable enough in the face of state laws that didn't provide legal protections. And while the national culture has shifted remarkably fast on gay rights, things lag behind for trans people. Meanwhile, the law is well behind both, and the current administration has made concrete moves level to curtail federal protection of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression.
The only option that jumps out for living warm-ish year-round while having our rights enshrined in law is Southern California, an region both exceedingly costly to live, and whose resources are dangerously strained by the people already living there.
So until/unless things change, I'll experience winter warmth only in visits, returning next weekend to the harsh elegance of the northern winter. Look for another Florida dispatch for next week's PTAS, which will probably go live after I'm already on a plane heading back to Maine.
Note: I apologize if the color or exposure on this shot isn’t quite up to par, I’m working from an un-calibrated laptop over a cell-phone hotspot