The act of rotating has many connotations, the most signal of which is turning one side for another. It may also define succession, sequence or cycle. In the extant context of sunbathing by the pool the paramount definition of rotating is the alteration of one platform of radiance for another; specifically front to back or vice versa. It is slight acclaim to poolside athleticism but nonetheless imperative if one were to approach the undertaking diligently. And be assured there are those who do.

This morning for example the crowd post matins had already begun to assemble by the pool for the ritual enterprise of sunbathing. There was the chap from Michigan with the straw hat who I am guessing was the first to arrive because his morning constitutional is so regular. Then there is Mary who has adopted a strict régime of tanning similarly predictable by having the identical chaise longue each day and enacting the meticulous ceremony of rotation in a timely manner. New to the crowd (though patently not new to sunbathing because he is already so brown) is the gentleman whose wife yesterday speculated as to the Native American lineage of her husband, encouraging him to conduct a formal background ancestral search beyond the usual “east European “ forebears. The late joiners by the pool in the sun were two young ladies (probably March Break students) who have yet to discover the burning sensation of this otherwise marvellous sun in the cloudless azure sky.

Rotation as a metaphor has application to other supervening and underlying influences at Buttonwood Bay on Key Largo. The precision of the ritual morning congregation at the pool is naturally preceded by its own commonality and rigour surrounding ablutions and breakfast. In addition if there is any solidity to the Native American ancestry then it warrants consideration that to this harmless sunbathing occupation there may also insinuate the roots of the horrible American exploits of the Salem witchcraft murders and of slavery, two of the most incomprehensible systems of humanity imaginable.The mere thought of a young woman being burned alive at the stake or a young man being hung by the neck in a tree is enough to wish for the most remote east European ancestry, anything to distinguish one’s bloodline from the religious madness of the Puritans and the arrogance of those who shackled human beings like animals. Nor is this putrid recollection enough to enhance the turning of the hands of the clock by so little as an hour today on the start of Daylight Savings.

It is our plight to acknowledge that the thinnest alliances with the nerves of our corporate ancestral limbs have created this superstructure of overbearing humanity. In the plainest of language, it is the elephant in the room that within Buttonwood Bay, apart from the Aztec or Inca bloodlines of the staff, there is not one black face. I venture to say that this peculiarity has larger gone unnoticed.  Most of us here simply move in one bubble to another, never having to endure any other reality. But the rotation of events globally is affecting North America as well. Through the advances of travel and education, and with the indisputable affect of technology and the internet universally, we are fast approaching the Star Wars cocktail bar of a multitude of different looking creatures all having a common involvement and purpose.