A Fine Example

For a book with a snappy title and a cover photo that always makes me think of a gator swimming, Andrew Furman's memoir, Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida leaves an undeniably sweet impression on my reading memory. A few years back I was fortunate enough to spend a day kayaking with Furman and other authors as part of an environmental book fair; we had a great time and saw some beautiful scenery and some big alligators. I'm a little embarrassed that I've just now gotten around to reading his delightful, heartfelt book.    

Furman's premise is simple: a job brought him to Florida and he didn't expect to like it. He figured the heat and mosquitos would be tolerable if he spent most of his time indoors. That strategy should have been fairly easy to implement, because Furman wasn't exactly the outdoorsy type. 

What happens next is the reason the title contains the words it does: "unexpected love affair." Furman begins to notice the distinctively Floridian environment around his house and the campus where he teaches. He's inspired to explore some of Florida's natural treasures, and to simply get outside more. That, in turn, inspires him to notice more how the campus keepers seem oblivious to the wonders that occur in their territory, viewing them, in fact, as expendable nuisances. Ditto his neighbors. Oblivious is the nice way to put it. Hostile is more like it.

Slowly at first, Furman begins to side with the natural world. Florida gets under his skin, and no one is more surprised than he is at how that happens. He transforms his yard by planting native plants and adopting a moderate approach to lawn maintenance. He thrills at the creatures his naturalized landscape welcomes. He goes exploring and fishing. He gets his wife and children involved. He reads and researches and learns a tremendous amount about the functioning landscape that he previously dismissed.  

That last bit -- his genuine change of heart -- is the most important part. Would that all newcomers could fall in love the way Furman has. Florida would be the better for it. 

Excerpt:

It may be something of a cliche, this seeping-into-the-bones business. But I think it's as apt an image as any to describe the physical nature of my attachment to this place. That is, the moments when I feel most at home in Florida are those moments when I venture outside my home and office to make physical contact with the state's unique environment, whether an extended excursion with the family up north to see the biggest live oak tree in Florida (the sort of trip my kids have learned to expect in lieu of a Disney World vacation), a night of fishing one of the nearby reefs in the Atlantic, a quick jaunt to a local park or wildlife refuge to check out the birds, or simply those precious few morning minutes between breakfast and work when I tend to my garden of native plants and vegetables, which mostly involves the unglamorous, and endless (!), business of weeding. By this point, I have a fair amount of Florida dirt under my fingernails, salt-air in my lungs, visions of green stored away in my memory bank. This stuff accumulates.

Note: This book counts toward the Color Coded Reading Challenge.