Pensacola, Florida: An Afternoon at the Beach

Sunset, Pensacola, Florida. October 2021.

 A new friend took me to Pensacola, Florida. 

I'd never been. To me, "Pensacola" has always been synonymous with "spring break" - college students swarming the beach, drinking, and .... swarming the beach and drinking. 

What else is there in Pensacola? 

Well, I still don't know, because my friend and I plopped our chairs in front of the Gulf of Mexico and we simply sat and chatted while we periodically pulled out a cold beer from the cooler between us. Heck, we didn't even stand up and put our feet in the water. 

Sunset, Pensacola, Florida. October 2021.

 

Or even go to the restroom. 

 

Sunset, Pensacola, Florida. October 2021.

 

We saw a pretty sunset, though. 

Sunset, Pensacola, Florida. October 2021.

A Year Later: Back on the Beach

So last June, I was on the beach. Waiting to see what I caught in my nets.

And here I am again, preparing to throw out new nets. 

A year in Georgia is in the bag and in retrospect, the year zipped by.

In that 12 months, I did a lot of travel within Georgia. I was also lucky enough to go here:

• Dubai
• The Mississippi Blues Trail with Carol
• The Louisiana Road Trip
• Istanbul
• Armenia

As for the future, I'll borrow a  line from Temperance Brennan: "... I await my own surprise." 

On Waiting

I've been pondering Waiting.

When I looked out on the web, I saw a lot on waiting in line, waiting for the start of a vacation, waiting for test results, or waiting in regard to a terminal illness.

I touched close to waiting with my article about being on the beach, but it didn't quite hit the spot.

Finally, today, I googled on the art of waiting. And was rewarded.

On waiting:

Stoking Your Creative Fire: Learn the Art of Active Waiting:  "... a quality of alert expectancy for the arrival of something that’s completely beyond a person’s ability to control. It will just happen when it happens, and show up when it shows up."

The Art of Waiting: "A kind of photoblog, but without the photos, at least for now. Wait with us."

African Time: The Art of Waiting: An excerpt from this beautiful piece:

Credit: ... Fragrance of Shooting Stars

"... Next you go off to the police commissariat on the other side of town, have a lovely chat to the the four (female) police officials clustered around a small table in a tiny hot room, exchange a few pleasantries about your travels, your family, compare ages of number of

grandchildren, wait for them to each in turn go through the process of washing – feet - three times, hands - three times, face - once, ears – once, and then kneeling down and praying on the grass mat rolled out at your feet, and then start the laborious process of filling out their forms – one per person in the group – with all the information they need to confirm and authorise your permanent residency in their country. Name, date of birth, residential address ..., nationality, passport number, date of issue, date of expiry, names of parents ... You would think we would just have the list handy with parents' names already written out. The list exists. But invariably, when the question comes up, that list happens to be with another member of the group who is busy on the other side of town waiting on the pavement outside another government building to be let in to sit on a bench against another wall to reach the front of another queue to get to hand in another set of papers for another form we need in this process of obtaining visas to get to the countries we hope to be heading to.)..."

I have my Plan A and my Plan B for my first EFL job. And I stay alert for other possibilities that I can act on. But in this moment, I am in suspense, in a place where Plan A has not been ruled in, nor been ruled out.

I wait.

On the Beach

I'm on the beach.

I first heard this term from my friend, Kay, a consultant. She was between assignments, waiting for her next gig. Her time on the beach might be days or it might be weeks.

My great-uncle Philip, when he worked a freighter, was sometimes on the beach.

Rights reserved

So I'm on the beach, going through the application process to teach in Georgia, Republic of. And shooting out Plan B and C tentacles meanwhile. 

Also tying up loose project ends, such as migrating my old Unemployment Weekly and Mzuri Monthly writings to the Mzuri blog. Tidying up the genealogical archive. Continuing to release items from my dwindling stock of possessions. 

On the beach.