1997 - Scouring the coast, getting a Florida home; Alia’s kicks - karate then dance; Sea turtle rescues; Cutting on Jared
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A barrier island with a road running through it like nearly everywhere in coastal Florida, but unlike anywhere else, the road dead-ended into wilderness. No endless chain of through traffic, civilization stopped at Cape Canaveral National Seashore. With the extended Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, the two preserves combined more than a hundred square miles of estuary, lagoon, and dunes that buffered the rocketry at Cape Kennedy, but remained pristine wilderness, never turned over to massive skyrise condos jammed together.
At the end of the island, the second to the last house, they found what they called their “double-wide on cinder blocks,” a small vinyl modular house, very small but right on the beach. They likely got it because in the 50’s & 60’s it had been “the black beach,” Bethune Beach. But they found it. They got it and settled in, Linda establishing herself and her family in that wonderful place.
In new Smyrna Beach Linda volunteered with the National Park Service. To protect sea turtles eggs, she helped place small cages over the nests so that the raccoons would not gobble them up, then watched them hatch and crawl to the sea a few weeks later. Up and down the wilderness strand most nights on an ATV, swathed against the fierce Mosquito Lagoon biters, she protected hundreds of loggerhead, green sea turtles and leatherbacks over the years.
Because of her volunteer status, regulations allowed her to collect a sea turtle carapace-shell, eagle feathers, other wonderful animal remains and totems, which she appropriately returned as warranted, but some that decorated her home for years.
Unlike Noah’s adventuresome even kinetic inclinations, Alia’s temperament was gentle, sweet, even a bit apprehensive, certainly cautious and reserved. Falling in Conifer against a stone table, knocking her two front teeth out didn’t help. Walking from the New Smyrna driveway into a nest of biting red ants didn’t help. “Fly Baby” swoops which both boys adored, lifting them high and swooping them low in holding arms, then high again – Alia did not like those at all.
Learning karate (her choice) did help. She worked her way to a Yellow Belt, then one day just stopped. Instead, she took up ballet, her teacher a former instructor at the London School of Dance. Alia acquired skill with avidity and evident talent – her instructor asked permission for her to go “on point” even though she was years younger than practice usually allowed. The instructor wrote to her London school, sent pictures and a video, and told Linda if they wanted Alia likely could enroll there. At age 7.
She didn’t. No way her parents would accept her living far and away across the ocean, or the incredible stresses and physical challenges-risks that practice and profession demanded. But the joy, the peace in Alia when she danced was itself the reward, and Alia kept at it until they eventually moved years later back to Colorado.
In their tiny living room, when the Star Trek Next Generation theme came on, Paul each time lifted her, tossed her high in pirouettes that unlike Fly-Baby tosses, Alia could control. Both would leap and jump from the furniture in a madcap celebration until the music waned and the episode began, delighting Linda and Jared with their cavorting antics.
It never seemed to end, Linda’s battles and struggles for Jared.
She took him to the Florida Keys to receive cranial-sacral therapy while swimming with dolphins. They swam as a family with manatees, Linda feeling their gentle healing energy might make a difference. She tried acupuncture, herbs, approaches Paul never heard of, always seeking to expand Jared’s capabilities and his ability to experience life. She “waterproofed” him, taking him to special-needs swimming lessons to be able to hold his breath, grab the pool side, even lightly tread water, all in case he fell in somewhere he would not go down like a rock. She took him to special horseback riding lessons where he eventually earned a trophy!
It worked, really. Because of her unflagging efforts and attention, her love and belief in his potential, Jared did live a charmed and expansive life, his enjoyment and his own determination enriching their lives, no matter how limited and consuming the caring for him.
A match made in Heaven…
