It’s a gorgeous December afternoon along the shores of Boca Ciega Bay. I’m standing at the southern edge of Eckerd College campus, where Frenchman’s Creek drains into the bay, watching sunshine glitter off the wake of passing boats and sift through the dense clump of mangroves at Maximo Point, just across the channel. I’m waiting for my friend Tyler, who directs Eckerd’s coastal management program and has promised to show me around the College’s new living shoreline installation, a grouping of plants and riprap meant to protect this erosion-prone section of its coastline. Snatches of students’ conversations in the nearby dog park drift by: a killer chemistry exam, roommate drama, plans for the upcoming break. The sun beats down and I peel off my jean jacket; by the time Tyler arrives, I’ve started to sweat. Even after 11 years, I’m still not quite used to Christmastime in Florida.
The night before, we’d put up our tree: the six-and-a-half feet, prelit, made-in-China ersatz evergreen we’ve affectionately dubbed “Wesley Spruce” after the name printed on the box. (It’s worth noting that there is no such species as a Wesley Spruce. This is apparently a marketing name created by Christmas tree manufacturers to designate a particularly lush and lifelike type of artificial tree). I’ll admit, I have mixed feelings about using an artificial tree; growing up, I relished the yearly trip to the tree lot, the delightful man-versus-tree wrestling match between my dad and our chosen conifer that inevitably followed, and the sweet green smell of fir that would fill the living room all season. I also know that, by the time you balance the plastics, the carbon footprint of shipping millions of artificial trees around the world, and the carbon mitigation provided by all those Christmas tree farms, you really should just buy a live tree. It’s what real treehuggers do. And yet, our family has been ringing in the holidays with our scraggly, smells-like-attic Wesley Spruce since 2014.
But, of course, there’s more to the story. Christmas 2014 was the first one we’d spent in the house my husband and I had bought together. I had just left a good job that had gone sour, and was moping anchorless and miserable through bright December days that felt like an affront to my sad state of mind. Wesley caught our eye on a routine trip to Home Depot; we needed a tree, and I think my husband knew it might cheer me up a bit. So we brought Wesley home, patiently unpacking and stacking his octopus-like tiers, tenderly untangling and fluffing his feathery-plastic boughs, and covering him with two boxes worth of gold balls—all the ornaments we had at the time. Since then, Wesley’s finery has grown: my tarnished silver First Christmas ‘82 bell (still plays “Joy to the World” if you wind it up enough), my husband’s collection of owl ornaments, and all manner of painted and googly-eyed creations produced by our son over the years. We deck Wesley out, plug him in, and, every time, there it is—that sentimental catch in my throat that means the Christmas season has officially begun. An awkward beginning turned strangely lovely.
Looking around me, I could say the same about the living shoreline. As we wade into waist-high spartina grass, I’m amazed by what I see. Just 16 months before, one broiling August afternoon, I had stood in this very spot, helping a throng of Eckerd students and staff plant grasses and shrubs in a patch of raw, sandy soil. Dodging shovel-swings and flying sand, I’d eased spartina and muhly grass plants from their pots, chatting with my planting partner about her first semester in college. We’d made a little game of wishing each plant luck as we patted it into the ground. When we finished and stepped back for a drink of water, it didn’t look like anything so grand as a living shoreline; it looked like a phalanx of ragged recruits, transfer-shocked plants stationed across 400 feet of bare soil. If I had understood the drubbing those little plants were to face in the next two months with the arrivals of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, I might have wished them more than luck. Parts of the installation had to be completely replanted…