by Kara Machowski
I was born in the suburbs of Chicago on the absolute coldest day in history since 1884. My life drastically changed when I was four and my mom remarried. We moved to join my new brother and new dad, Jeff, in this new exotic place called “Florida”; where every house had a palm tree in its yard.
Growing up in Chicago, our pools existed above the ground, and apparently, my first encounter in a warm, luscious Florida pool occurred the day that I met my new dad. For a moment I was left outdoors where I calmly walked into the pool, down the steps, submerging myself completely, and waddled to the middle. Jeff caught sight of me as I was going in, stood for a moment in disbelief before frantically running outside and jumping into the pool to rescue me. I was quickly enrolled in swimming lessons.
For children, the real magic exists in those sweet dog days between the school years. I became a master at catching lizards in our backyard on weekends, learning to water ski at summer camp, and no one could keep me out of the water from then on, chlorine or salt-infused. My new brother and I attended both McGinnis and Pinecrest summer camps in those glistening, humid months. We learned archery, ate brain freezing, bubblegum flavored ices and I eventually became a camp counselor.
As a family, we would drive down to the Florida Keys, from Marathon to Key West. We devoured fresh Mahi-mahi, oysters, Key lime pie with toasted meringue as big as my head and we bonded over violet, salmon, and orange paradisal sunsets. We dived with sharks and barracuda and were met by friendly manatees and their baby calves. We sailed on our boat, the Ko Ko Mo, and eventually, my dad and brother acquired a 15-foot Mako that cut through saltwater, always with someone in tow on skis or a waterboard.
I joined girl scouts where my mom became a counselor and we camped at Birch State Park, avoiding the raccoons at night. We sang century-old campfire songs, ate beans and hot dogs, with Girl Scout cookies of course. We moved from our house on A1A to a Key West-inspired home on of the isles off of Las Olas. We spent weekends rollerblading down A1A, pristine ocean as our backdrop.
Florida's Burrowing Owls, which are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, tunneled themselves in the ground in our backyard and would hibernate themselves in the daytime and hoot blissful sonnets at night. In the summertime parrots, the color of emeralds infused with ruby and citrine, flocked to the royal palms outside of my window, making their presence known through high-pitched squawks.
Watching my mom and stepdad growing up and the way that they loved each other inevitably taught me that the meaning of life was love, no matter how hard it was or how much you had to fight for it. My brother and I are both romantics because of this, satisfied by the simplicity of our souls reflected in another. Our childhoods both were altered just a year apart; I lost my birth father and his birth mother also passed away. All of a sudden and uncontrollably, a bit of childhood bliss was taken from us.
As I aged into my teenage years I perched at Commercial Pier during the summer where my girlfriends and I would bake in the Florida sun and shelter under the wooden pier when the afternoon thunderstorms encroached and boomed. We vegged out on French fries and clams or breaded calamari at Aruba’s restaurant or cheap veggie burgers on the pier. We filled up on giant burritos and cheesy quesadillas at Zona Fresca and ate everything under the sea on Las Olas.
After I graduated high school, while in college, I started working at Birch State Park, as a city Segway guide. I gave guided tours down A1A, stopping for delicious ice cream and retelling the history of Fort Lauderdale. From the oldest Florida home, the Stranahan House built in 1901, to Hugh Taylor’s journey from Chicago to Florida and the artistry behind the idyllic Floridian Bonnet House where white egrets balanced. I taught tourists about the wide-rimmed leaves that natives used as sun hats to mangroves that soak up saltwater and disperse the sodium on their leaves and how it was used to spice foods by the native Seminoles. We picnicked on the Intracoastal, under the giant banyans, and biked under the hardwood, green canopies, sunlight fluttering in.
After completing my Associate’s Degree in Journalism and shortly after meeting my future husband, who also had recently graduated, we decided to move to Chicago. I had always dreamt of returning to where my birth father and family had lived, and attending Columbia College, and finishing a novel. So I left my tropical haven to make a home in a concrete jungle and complete my degree.
When I felt homesick I of course called my mom, but I called Jeff just as often and in moments of complete despair. Brian and I took advantage of Chicago; we haunted the Art Institute and every other museum and historical building. We lived in a tiny apartment that overlooked the city and braved blizzards with winds that would carry a bassinet away, I actually saved a few. After weathering a few winters I knew that I had metamorphosed into a “city girl”. I graduated with a halfway completed fiction novel about a young girl growing up in Northern Florida in the 1930s, and Brian and I were met with our next stage; planning our wedding and another move, this time to Arizona. We had a few options as to where to get married, from the West, Midwest to the South East, but feeling nostalgic, we returned to our roots and picked a compound, Alligator Reef Estate in Marathon Key.
Perfectly set in the sweltering month of May, with both of our families and friends that had grown close over the years it felt like a tropical reunion. Deep purple and pink bougainvillea surrounded the grounds with leafy wild mangroves and palms that reached for the sky were strung with twinkling lights. Before my husband and I said “I do”, I took my parents aside and told them that I wanted to let them know that no matter what, after 26 years of raising me, that Jeff would always be my father. I gave him the legal documents to adopt me because even at 29 and no matter where I lived, I’d always be their little Florida girl.
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