I could get used to living in Key West

By Marc Taro Holmes in Key West, FL

From my perspective, looking out my window at five foot snowbanks, the town of Key West is a marvel.

An impossibly distant fantasy land of tropical luxury. Probably that’s how the people that live there feel as well. Walking around, I couldn’t get over how the houses were overwhelmed by lush greenery. Even the smallest home had an amazing garden.

One of my favorite spots was the Audubon House. Like many regional museums named after famous people from history, it’s not actually *his* house, and it wasn’t even built when he visited Key West. But – it is much like a house where he *might* have stayed, and he did make diary entries about the unusual trees in the same block.

As you sit in the overgrown gardens, enjoying orchids and bromeliads hanging from swaying palms, you can imagine him passing through on his quest for the wildest, strangest Birds of America. This was probably the best day of the trip for me. Such a great place to spend the afternoon. Painting this amazing garden, and taking breaks to go look at the gallery of birds. Makes you think you could get used to the Key West Life.

Though, reading a bit about it, it sounds like Audubon himself did not have it easy. His life included: fleeing conscription under a false passport, surviving yellow fever, dodging privateers, managing the family mine (his father figured everyone needed lead for bullets), getting through the civil war intact, ending up in debtor’s prison, sketching death-bed portraits for quick cash, fighting the scientific establishment to see his work published, travelling the world hand-selling subscriptions to his prints – actually selling animal pelts he shot himself to raise funds for printing. Whew. that’s just the first half of his life.

The house features a small gallery with some excellent reproductions of Audubon’s prints, and of course the usual drink coasters and puzzles made from his art. I had to be impressed thinking about his body of work from 1838 still steadily selling. Never mind his great achievement in naturalist art, that right there is impressive to a working artist such as myself.

I have to wonder what the year round experiences are in this town. It does seem precariously perched on a very low lying island, very far out in the ocean. Maybe living on a boat would be the answer? So you could be ready to bug out in hurricane season. I’d prefer to live on a pirate ship like the Jolly Rover. But, there also seems to be a fascinating niche culture of house boating. I am imagining scenes of fleets of these boxy floating homes desperately puttering ahead of an oncoming hurricane. Probably an overactive imagination there. But we’ll see what climate change brings. Maybe these people are right!

I hope to get back to Key West again. We had a great time, and I’d love to make it an alternative to Montreal’s winter.

~marc