What I like about living in Clearwater, FL
By Arnold Sherr
Don’t misunderstand, just as life was challenging in New Jersey it is, as they say, no picnic here either! But, herein lay that difference; meeting life’s challenges when complicated by frigid temperatures, blizzard snow storms, excessive traffic, and the fast paced culture that is common the further north one travels decreases of dominance as one migrates southward. It is sort of like Dystopia v Utopia, not that either is achievable! It is a reality that of northern destinations commerce is keener, costs of living more demanding, and the pace accelerated beyond comfortable levels. I’ve always perceived New York’s Manhattan as being the ultimate mental pressure-cooker. I’ve never traveled abroad so a European comparison I cannot example, however in and of my career in toy sales I spent many a two week Toy Fair event in the Big Apple. Everybody was in a hurry; asking directions was risky business; patronizing restaurants without recommendations is “eat at your own risk.” It is my impression, the Big Apple is the best and the worst of it all. But Florida; Clearwater Florida is for me a better place to stress over the same challenges of which I stressed up-north.
Let’s talk about life’s challenges. Many move from or to somewhere believing they are able to escape their challenges. Have you ever gone on a long holiday, say to a tropical island resort? Is it not true that after a few days in this new and relaxing paradise environment, issues and challenges seem to slowly dissipate from thought or concern? I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to live where I was vacationing. I think most of us adhere to that fantasy. It is okay so long as we do not succumb to this illusion. For those who do, they shall soon answer their new paradise home’s front door only to greet those challenges of prior residence as though a long lost relative has regained familiarity. The reality; they were never left behind geographically, just mentally as in “buried behind the novelty that is soon to wear off.”
As much as I, with logic dispel this fantasy, I do attest there is some truth that moving south away from the growing stresses that append our mental proclivities as we manage to tolerate, some better than others, the environmental conditions that can and do for most make life more difficult to navigate, physically and mentally, there is here in Florida, for me Clearwater, a more relaxed and less pressured environment in which to face, handle, solve, and discharge those very same issues and challenges. For those who tell us that Florida is therapeutic, I so heartfully agree. Is not the sun a mood enhancer contrasted to the strings of cloudy, chilly, and windy falls days? Is not the year round’ warmth of Florida that penetrates one’s sole, the reverse being shivering hopelessly while waiting for the bus because we are afraid the drive on the icy layer shimmering on the streets from the overnight hail storm?
To summarize, at least for me; I would rather worry, obsess, stress, be challenged, be ill, be lonely if applicable, and otherwise be miserable here in Clearwater, Florida than in Washington DC, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and God please, not Canada. I can obsess on the beach twelve months of the year; look for a job without wearing a coat; stagger home (on foot) in a drunken stooper without being found frozen-to-death on a city sidewalk, change a flat tire without wearing gloves for fear of frost bitten fingers, having to scrape from my car windows the icy frost that settled over night, and like a “jack in the trunk” accompany it with a folding “military style shovel” just in case of a flash 15” or so snow storm, and so much more as your imagination shall permit you to conjure.
You know, I’ve just as much tsuris but in a much nicer, much sunnier, much more relaxed environment in which to, just as unsuccessfully, solve every of the challenges that came with me to Clearwater, Florida.
Halam, Hebrew for “Be in good Health” / God bless Florida
*Manhattan Photographs by railfan55 as posted at http://community.webshot.com, a shared photo website
**Clearwater Photographs taken by Arnold Sherr, Sherr Enterprises and Tampa Bay Informer independent writer
