It's 26°F outside, that's -3.33°C "for those who observe." But it's clear and it's not snowing. Yet. Might be later.

We rented a cargo van from Home Depot yesterday and drove to the little town of Waverly to pick up a used table and chairs Mitzi found online. It was interesting to see some new scenery.

This aspect of New York is familiar to me. It's "diverse" in the sense of economic status. There are no gated communities. You're not shielded from poverty and its effects.

When I was a kid, we rode the bus to school. We were the first stop in the morning, and the last stop in the afternoon. We saw every house along our rural route. The well-to-do (no one was "wealthy" there, at least then), to the barely surviving. Nobody wanted to sit next to the kids from houses that were falling apart, because of their body odor. There was no overt cruelty or bullying, but there was little in the way of welcome or friendship either.

I think this is why this place feels like home. I've often described living in St Johns County, Florida as living in a bubble. Because it is. It is so far removed from the wider reality of life in the United States. It makes it easy for people to be malignantly indifferent to the plight of the poor. They never see them.

Apart from the climate risk, there has always been this vague, gnawing sense of discomfort living there. It feels like cheating somehow. I'm more convinced, more certain, now that I want to get out of there.

Of course, there's a risk of gentrification here. Money is finding its way here, and it will alter the landscape. If I'm lucky, perhaps not within my lifetime. There are efforts to preserve farming in the region. Will they be enough to counter "Big Money"? I don't know, but at least there's an awareness of the risk.

A lot of the houses, the residential lots, here are from families, gifting or selling to children or grandchildren from farm acreage. That's how the place we're living on started, and how each of our neighbors to the north and south of us started.

I've read some calls, post-election, that we recognize that "we're all in this together." But so much of our political and economic activity is directed toward obscuring that fundamental truth. From gated communities, to gerrymandering, to disenfranchising people, we try to divide ourselves, isolate ourselves in our particular bubbles.

If I am to live out the rest of my life witnessing the beginning of the end of this civilization, I'd rather do it here, among these people, than cloistered in an entitled reality distortion field that relies on blindness. I'd rather pay New York State taxes, than fleece tourists and rob the poor with regressive sales taxes.

Florida was founded on fraud and fantasy, selling swampland and a theme park existence.

We're headed back on Tuesday, but not to stay.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:51 Sunday, 1 December 2024