#st. marks

Piazza San Marco during Acqua Alta.

Well. So far, so good.

This is my first time visiting over a period of multiple days (instead of the usual in-and-out). And this place is getting its hooks into me.

Where is this, exactly?

This is St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, a place along the coast of Florida's panhandle, south of Tallahassee. It has, perhaps, been most recently made famous by the imagination of Jeff VanderMeer, whose Southern Reach trilogy series drew heavily upon it for inspiration, and openly so.

Last time I was here, my partner and I ended up hanging out with Jeff and Ann (and another couple we made buds with) after a book-signing we saw advertised in the St. Marks visitor center's gift shop. We thought, why not, let's go check it out - and then spent an unbelievably surreal afternoon at the VanderMeer house. We never do stuff like that, they said they never do stuff like that, but hey, total strangers can and do occasionally hit it off, even when we're all brutally introverted.

To make matters stranger, it was the last interaction most of us had before lockdown in 2020.

Whether it's Area X or not, this region in particular has a place in mine and my partner's hearts because it was the first place he ever lived in. His father was a biologist, connected to the study of a species of woodpecker that lives in the St. Marks refuge. It was this career that eventually led his family north, to a similarly biologically diverse place - the place that would enable a meeting at the same film and theatre school.

When a friend of mine, much later, dumped a copy of Annihilation in my lap for my birthday and said, "This feels like you," I read the novel very quickly and thought it felt oddly familiar also, namely that "This is Florida. It has to be."

So, entering the area again after five years - this time with my parents in tow - I wondered out loud what strange bullshit would happen this time.

I am beginning to think the place is sentient after all, some kind of spacetime-bending beast of fortune that - should you wish to open a dialogue with it - you can poke and prod with varying results.

We'd barely crossed the border in Wakulla County when my mom received a phone call.

Turns out that thousands of miles away, my parents' house, my childhood home, narrowly avoided a massive grass fire that burned for miles. This was happening as we were drawing up to the St. Marks area yesterday; the fire should have burned their place down and did not. It burned all the way around their home, leaving all structures intact, and then furiously barreled east.

My parents have been given a thumbs up and loads of reassurance from their rural fire department, and have since enjoyed a day in the St. Marks refuge with us.

WHAT. THE FUCK.

Anyway, field notes - hiked the Tower Pond trail for the first time, worth it. It's definitely a tower, not a tunnel.