The provenance and heritage of the Buttonwood Bay interloper is not long materializing with or without the most casual address or confab. Even without such iconic nouns of address as Phiddy (to whom I was yesterday happily introduced at the center pool) sojourners here are by my reckless suspicion and calculation more predominantly associated with the Anglo Saxons and Italians than with the those whom might for example instead promote my personal favourites Franny and Zooey of JD Salinger’s memorable Glass family from the Upper East Side in New York City.

The story reflects Salinger’s known interest in Eastern religious philosophy such as Zen Buddhism and Hindu Advaita Vedanta, as well as Eastern Orthodox Christian spirituality, particularly in a brief section in the second part that includes quotations from spiritual texts. There is also a discussion of whether the book is a “mystical story” or a “love story” in the introduction to the second section, as speculated by the book’s narrator, Buddy Glass (who decides it’s the latter). Gerald Rosen, in his short 1977 book Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger, observes that Franny and Zooey could be interpreted as a modern Zen tale, with the main character Franny progressing over the course of the short story and novella from a state of ignorance to the deep wisdom of enlightenment. Jennifer Dunn, in an essay, mentioned that the “disparity between bright busy surfaces and inner emptiness” found in Franny and Zooey can be read as a metaphor for modern society. Carl Bode, in a University of Wisconsin journal, suggested that Salinger, while writing in Franny and Zooey that “the phoney and the genuine equally deserve our love”, found this as an answer to some of his own emotional problems.

By evident contrast in this unscheduled contest of nomenclature Tom and Gerry MacLean were bobbing alone in the pool when I arrived on my tricycle shortly after noon today. Not wishing to obstruct their erstwhile privacy I disguised my primary motive (to settle a chaise longue directly into the burning rays) by an amiable pretence of token sociability. My private ambition soon dissolved however as it became apparent that the corporate enterprise of our community was directed to such elemental and palatable ingredients as the usual “Where are you from?”, “What did you do?”, “Have you been here before?”, “How long are you here for?” Thankfully the Bohemian character of the Florida Keys spared us the surplusage of matrimonial status or politics, two key components in my customary encounters.

A predominant constituent of Key Largo society is the vernacular of Long Island and New York City (Greenwich Village, Brooklyn and Manhattan). New Yorkers (including their renegades to Florida) are in spite of their notoriety for shameless expression surprisingly attuned to the mandate for surpassing refinement and unanticipated dignity. New Yorkers have after all the nutritious social benefit of straddling both parallels of the track  (candidness and sophistication) thus permitting them the privilege of waffling and anecdotal conversation. Joey for instance derives from Brooklyn but exhibits an uncommon fusion with vocabulary and grammar that to my thinking betrays an early childhood understanding or native intelligence.

As the afternoon sunbeams elongated upon the blue garden pool, we (that is the expedient conversationalists) tripped from one episode to another, judiciously relaxing upon the way momentarily to regain the focus of the sun and to reinvigorate our civil ammunition. These are indeed the salad days of measurable opportunity. It was with gusto early this morning that I reduced my hesitancy after a deep sleep to mounting euphoria, to capture whatever inertia there is, to express as best I can my inimitable desire and passion. Life on Key Largo, the coral reef of seemingly endless sunshine and collective mirth; private avenues for walking and cycling; the swell of humanity and its bountiful resource of conviviality.