On the one-year anniversary of moving to Miami from Northern California, I wrote down some observations on my personal blog and made it a Top 10 list, because that’s a trick bloggers do. It got shared around Facebook, and while you always have that random stranger who posts on your friend’s Facebook wall, calling you whiny and self-servicing, most people who live here have seemed to relate to something about that piece, even if it was from a tree-hugging, San Francisco carpetbagger.
Next thing you know, it gets posted on WLRN, gets republished on NPR’s Facebook page, and you’re approached to write a regular column for the radio station. And you say yes because you think, “this place is already pretty weird. How can I make my experience here even more unusual?”
It’s all been kinda sudden and unexpected to me, but my friend Rich totally called it.
Before I left for Miami, I had lunch in San Francisco with a couple of old co-workers of mine at a fancy sandwich place owned by one of those chefs from Top Chef. By now, everyone knew that I was going to move across the country, and Rich pointed out that he spent a couple of years in Miami after his college years in Texas, before finding a stable job and generally moving on with his life. He made his experience sound like some sort of Amish rumspringa, where kids in their twenties hung out at Mansion looking for some girl named Molly before becoming responsible adults.
Except I wasn’t going to get anything out of my system — all that stuff was behind me, and I was moving to make a long-distance relationship not so long-distance. “I lost the coin toss,” I usually say to strangers when they ask me why I moved here.
“Moving to Miami is going to be great for you. You’re a blogger - you’ll have plenty of things to write about.” He starts grinning, and I imagine him imagining me in ridiculous social situations, like me trying to open a beach umbrella and then getting stuck underneath, like a cartoon.
I shrug between bites of my twelve dollar hummus and avocado sandwich. “I mean, I’ll try to blog in my spare time. I still plan on doing technical stuff.” The plan had been to stay the course as a freelance web developer - it was really easy to be a computer programmer in San Francisco and how would it be any different in South Florida?
“Where are you going to live again?” he asks.
“South Beach.”
He squinted his eyes and smiled. “Sure, man. Just promise me you’ll blog. Because the stuff you’re going to write will be amazing.” He may as well have patted me on the head.
So here I am, writing more than I had my last couple of years in San Francisco, taking notes on observations around me; regular life that may be completely obvious to you, oh lifelong South Beach, Miami-Dade and/or South Florida resident, but not so much me, a stranger in a strange land.
But, Rich Garcia, if you read this: you will get your wish after all. Consider yourself warned.