Florida

I'm in Ft. Lauderdale, saying beautiful Ft. Lauderdale would be a stretch for me, helping on an audit. It's the first time since my surgery that I've tried to work, so I'm approaching things a bit tentatively. The team of Arizona auditors flew in last night on a red eye and we went into the agency today on three hours of sleep. Maybe I'm getting old, but in retrospect this seems like a very dumb idea.

Florida is a funny state, or rather its residents are pretty funny. It's sort of like a state of New Yorkers on steroids designed to help inhibit the aging process. I saw this elderly little slip of a woman drop her sweater coming down the escalator to the baggage carousel. She tried to pick it up but couldn't. She got this diabolical look on her face and kicked it, where it sailed to the bottom of the steps. (She's probably a retired New Yorker. She had that New York attitude.)

I've never spent more than a few days, maybe five in a row, in Florida, and that's been enough. It just isn't my kind of place, between the crowded highways, the humidity and the throngs of people all seemingly headed in the same direction.

I was in Ecuador for two weeks with a friend of mine in the early 90s. After our stay, I flew into Miami 15 pounds lighter with a terrible case of stomach virus and a greater appreciation for what it means to live in the United States. But the aching poverty of Ecuador, and Ecuador is one of the wealthier of the South American countries, juxtaposed against the noveau riche glitz of Miami, was a slap in our faces when we flew into Miami to spend three days before we flew home.

The best part of traveling, though, is attending meetings where you don't know anyone, don't know how the meetings are run, and you automatically put principles before personalities because you have no history with the people you meet. It's a delicious break from my home group and I always take away more from an away-from-home meeting than I came in with.

I've been blessed in my recovery to live in a lot of places and travel to more. I've been to meetings in three countries and more states than I can count. I find that no matter how lonely or rattled I am when traveling, I walk into a meeting, whether it's at a ghetto church in Jersey or a beautiful New England cathedral, and I'm home.