Posted on January - 01 - 2012
Flamingos, friends, and home, sweet home
Living in paradise, one would imagine that we wake up every morning, thrilling to eternal sunshine, glorious sugar-fine white sand and azure blue waters lapping at our shores. Alas no. Just like folks who live next to a train station (not that this is a great comparison!), we eventually become inured to our environment. Too often, we forget to ‘smell the roses’. When surrounded by the beauty of Mother Nature on a daily basis, one can start taking ‘Her’ for granted.
Yesterday, my best friend of some 40 years, arrived on Provo for the first time. And Amber, being a flamingo enthusiast (well, that’s somewhat of an understand because she loves flamingos in any shape or size, whether real, stuffed or plastic sitting on your lawn) wanted to know about the famed flamingos of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Sadly, I had to advise her that this was not the season to see them. (And just so you’ll know, I live on Flamingo Lake, where flamingos flock in the winter season, right in front of my home, to partake of their favorite repast…those teeny tiny shrimp that provide them with their outstanding and outlandish pink/orange hues!)
This morning, however, barely awake, I received a text from a wonderful island friend, Caren, advising me that the flamingos were in front of my house. What? Flamingos? I rushed outside, camera in hand, determined to get pictures for my BFF Amber and her beautiful partner Lisette.
So, now that my morning flurry of photographic activity has ceased and I have settled in to my chair to blog, I am captivated by this series of coincidences. Amber, who asks for flamingos. Caren, who texts me about them unknowingly, today of all days. And our incredibly flamboyant flamingos – some 50 of them this time – who have returned ‘home’ to the lake at this rather odd time. And now that they’re here, hopefully, they’ll stay awhile. So Amber, a NY film producer and director, will be able to memorialise her beloved flamingos. Oh, how the fates have conspired!
But did the fates indeed conspire? Perhaps it was Amber, throwing together some magic to make events coalesce, while mentally nudging Caren to let me know the famed Turks & Caicos flamingos were back. Or was it simply that they have been here regularly and I have become inured to their sight? Be that as it may, whether magic or the fates aligning, I am reminded that I do indeed live in paradise, surrounded by beauty. But more importantly, time must be taken to not only enjoy, but honor its magnificence!
And so, Turks & Caicos, I salute you; my home, my beloved, beautiful, home, sweet home…
