Palms Spring Eternal

I am a native Floridian, born and bred in Florida during an era when most of its residents had migrated from elsewhere.  Today I flew to Tampa—not quite my Miami home, but it feels more like it than Miami does today.  You can feel the humidity almost instantly; the moisture creeps insidiously into the main passenger compartment of the plane as soon as the cargo doors burst open to expel the luggage.   I have spent a lifetime battling the scourge of humidity and its effects on my frizzy hair.  Before I’ve disembarked, my blonde mop has lost several inches of its length, the penetrating vapors having immediately excited the curls that I’ve painstakingly flattened against dry heat. 

There are lots of things that tell people they are home:  the smell of a special pie baking, a familiar whiff of cleaning spray, the creak of a stubborn screen door, the site of an old schoolyard.  For me, nothing says home like palm trees.  One look out the window and I am instantly transported, my heart tied in nostalgic knots.

Florida is defined by its palm trees.  Growing up here, I learned to identify the many varieties, whether it was in sixth grade science class or to earn a Girl Scout merit badge.  The ubiquitous Sable Palm, the state tree of Florida, is a variety distinguished by circular, fan-like fronds.  Those of us who attended Sabal Palm Elementary learned to recognize and spell (correctly) this variety at a young age.  I always imagined its branches’ being pulled off and used to cool a demanding Cleopatra as she reclined upon a gilded sedan chair.  Her oppressed slaves would not make a sound as they pulled the branches, their sharp edges cutting into their own “palms” and bleeding, unsoothed.   Then there is the aristocratic Royal Palm, with its tall, straight trunks and snow-white bark.  Its form seems to betray some type of elitist genetic cleansing; so perfect is its form, so exaggerated its height and alignment.  It is most likely to be found lining important streets and boulevards, signaling the visitor that they have arrived someplace worth visiting.  It is the most recognizable of all palms and perhaps, to most people, the most beautiful and archetypal. 

But without equivocation, my favorite palm tree is the coconut palm.  A coconut palm is not majestic or picturesque, its fronds wilt and yellow quickly, its trunk is easily bent and blemished.  This is the tree of my youth, my heart—my kindred spirit.

At a young age I moved into the house that had once been my grandparents’.  My uncles, who were much younger than my mother, grew up in that house—even attending the same junior high school that I later attended.  When they were teenagers, they sprouted a coconut in a bucket and later planted it on the “boulevard” between the sidewalk and the street, an area also bounded by our driveway and that of the neighbors.  By the time I was five and moved into the house, it was a beautiful young tree about ten feet high, capped by an umbrella of graceful fronds.  Coconut palms are generally a single diameter from bottom to top, so while the tree grew taller and taller with each year, it stayed the same trim trunk near the ground in the center of this small square “island” of land surrounded on all sides by pavement. 

This was the playground of my youthful imagination.  Here, I was Jeannie washed ashore in her bottle, waiting to be rescued by two Nasa astronauts.  I was a mermaid, flirting with handsome princes, always close enough to the ocean to disappear mysteriously.  I was a mighty Amazon, able to scale the tree and wage war with makeshift weapons against ruthless intruders.  Later, I would sit at the base of the tree reading the classics in its protective shade, imagining myself on my own deserted island with nothing but time and an entire library’s worth of literature.

Over the years, the tree got taller and taller, budding regularly and occasionally producing mature coconuts.  Late in my high school years, as I prepared to leave Florida in order to pursue the next chapter in my life, the coconut palms across South Florida got sick, contracting a deadly blight called “Lethal Yellowing.”  It spread very quickly, first discoloring the coconut-producing seed stalks and then turning the lacy green fronds a brownish color.  An infected tree drooped sadly when even the newest fronds turn brown, signaling that the phytoplasmic insult had come full circle.  Once infected, a tree lost its limbs prematurely one by one until only a towering trunk was left, headless and lifeless.  We watched the blight spread, noting how it seemed to infect randomly, sparing our beloved tree for almost a year.  Unfortunately, although scientists would develop an antibiotic treatment that was effective against the blight, it was too late to spare these indigenous warriors.  Our tree would succumb with the rest, until it, too, stood decapitated in the driveway.

One day, we found a painted marker on the trunk of our tree.  Like a laser sighting from a sniper’s gun, our coconut palm was targeted for removal by the County.  Just as inauspiciously, it was taken a few days later; we came home to find a low stump where our magnificent tree had once stood.

Coconut palms are known to farmers as three-generation trees, meaning that they will feed the farmer, his children, and eventually his grand-children.  Our coconut palm was a part of our family, having been brought to life by my young uncles, and then giving comfort and entertainment—as well as coconuts—to my family for many years.  Its loss was tragic and personal; I would never again live in Florida and my children would never know the beauty and companionship of my favorite palm.  Eventually my parents would plant the next generation of Malayan hybrids, developed to be resistant to lethal yellowing.  Soon after, they would sell the house and leave those trees for a new family.

Now in my fifties, I visit Florida only rarely.  Much of what conjures nostalgia in my home town is long gone:  the synagogue where I became Bat Mitzvah, Corkies—my favorite eatery, the factory that produced the best steaming-hot New York style bagels.  The Publix, where I worked on weekends, is no longer closed on Sunday.  The blistering Junior High is now air-conditioned.  And my family home, which had once been my grandparents’ house, has been architecturally altered beyond recognition. There is little to beckon me.

The coconut palm of my youth—cocus nucifera—is also not to be found.  It has been retired by blight and replaced by science.  Yet the site of just one coconut-bearing beauty on the opposite coast of Florida—probably genetically altered itself—is enough to bring back a wash of memories.  Once again I can hear the rustle of the fronds before the late afternoon showers.  Once again I can feel the comfort of my childhood friend.

Tomorrow's blog:  Fear Itself