Mango Melee

Large rose colored orbs hanging from long skinny stems like spiders at the end of a web, if the web was a large dark green leafy tree, began to appear across the island. Mango season has arrived.

Mango trees can grow as large as a live oak tree and many are heavy with abundant mango fruits. Sidewalk stands of mangoes emerge not only along the side of the road but in driveways manned by children, the local equivalent of a lemonade stand.

Each year the St. George Village Botanical Gardens hosts the Mango Melee to celebrate the harvest. In addition to crafts and food booths, typical of any festival, the Mango Melee features a display of the unbelievable amount of mango varieties. Besides the named species, I would estimate that at least a dozen unnamed local mangoes were on display. They range in size from larger than a softball to the width of a cell phone and all number of hues, textures and sweetness.

For someone who only found one variety of mango in her local Winn Dixie, I gained quite an education on the vastness of mangoes. I also bought some mango soap and a mango jam put up in a baby food jar and sold by an elderly woman sporting an American flag patterned bandanna around her head and matching petticoat. I have yet to try it, but I am convinced that it will be goo-ood.

Ha'Penny Bay

On the quiet south shore, Haypenny Bay is the stretch of beach closest to my house and visible from our residence. No commercial dwellings exist on the public westward side of the bay and only one residence is visible through the tall sea grape trees.
Weekdays the beach lies quietly awaiting the weekend’s excitement. Saturdays and Sunday afternoons local families gather to picnic, swim and sun. Walk west away from the splashing children gathered in the sandy bottomed cove nearest to the makeshift car park and Haypenny Bay extends as about a mile of quiet windswept path.

My favorite spot lies midway down the beach near a promontory that serves as my walker’s half way mark. At this outcrop, a few hundred yards toward the horizon lies a ring of reefs. Rather than the typically horizontal roll, waves crash over these undersea barriers at odd angles. The waters careen, stop short, and thrust upwards in brief waterspouts and sideways in great splatters. I imagine a great school of fish diving and rising and chasing each other’s tails.

Last week in a hurried pace, busy with checklists and errands, I trudged down the beach my dog in tow for his obligatory exercising. When I reach the reefs, out of habit, I paused to study them and felt my spirits rise. It seems we’re trying to be diligent, be dutiful, be successful, be on top and ahead of the game. . .Why is it so difficult to just be?