She surfs in on a wave. 
She can almost touch the shoreline. 
Arduous journey rewards; she’s found her home. 
A place in which to set roots.  Grow.  Live.

Forty years ago, I was born in Albany, New York.  The son of two Cuban refugees, looking for jobs and a place to start anew.  Fortunately, three years later, their journey brought them back to Miami, where they had first met and married.  This is where they decided to settle their roots.  It’s the only place I’ve ever called home.

As a kid, I remember walking away from the Crandon Park family picnics and heading with my Dad and brothers towards the shoreline at Bear Cut.  Dad would point out friends from his own childhood: a magical starfish, parading horseshoe crabs, chitons embedded in the dientes de perro -- a whole world that lived under rhythmic waves.  I was especially fascinated by the trees with weird roots that lived in the water.  I saw mangroves as these great conquerors taking on the sea; building homes for the birds nesting on their branches and the fish playing in their roots. 

Those walks helped recreate what was once home for Dad.  In a sense, our natural environment was the most immediate way for him to connect with his hometown in the northern coast of Cuba.  Nature has a way of doing that.  It’s extra-large that way.  It can transport us, not just to another place, but to another time.  It reminds us of what was here before all the concrete was poured.  As generations and growth transform Miami, we as a people are grounded by nature, the one constant in this ever changing and wonderful city.  

Five centuries ago (in the year MDXIII), Ponce de Leon sailed by the same waters and named our little family picnic island Santa Marta.  As his galleon sailed past it, the great discoverer may have noticed a mangrove seed surfing on a wave.   She’s heading towards our shoreline where she’ll set her roots and build her home in the state he would name, La Florida.