A Celebration Weekend

Apalachicola is one of those places just eat up with charm. I mean EAT UP with it. Old houses both stately and funky, palm trees, a beautiful bay, a gorgeous winding river, great shopping, great eating, fishermen, tourists, artists- hell, it even has its own homosexuals. It could be Key West but thank god it's not.

You can sit down in a bar and have the owner of some company sitting on one side of you wearing madras pants and an oyster-shucker wearing jeans and a ripped T-shirt on the other side.

And that's where Mr. Moon and I are headed tomorrow for our anniversary weekend.

Twenty five years we'll have been married on Sunday and no, I can't believe it either.

This is not going to be one of those sappy posts. I already wrote one of those today.
No, it's just a post about how nice it's going to be to get in a car (maybe the Cutlass!) and drive that beautiful road down to the coast and then crossing a bridge that looks like the back of some prehistoric reptile



which ends right in front of the Gibson. We've booked a room at the Gibson and some of you might look at it and say, "But Ms. Moon, your own house is older than that, and a lot more private and just as charming," and I'd say, "You're right!" but they have restaurants in Apalachicola and one of my favorite shops in the world, River Lily, where I can buy some of my favorite perfume and drool over the jewelry, lamps, clothing and great fun stuff I've never seen anywhere else. There are also antique stores, a fabulous book store, and the best oysters in the world, not to mention a lot on the bay that Mr. Moon and I own and which we hope to build on some day. Plus, someone else will be washing my towels and sheets and you can't beat that with a stick and it certainly doesn't happen here in Lloyd, plus, if a dog shits on the floor, I won't be expected to clean it up.

We've stayed in Aplachicola many times before and I wrote a novel based there and it's just the kind of place that grabs your heart and makes you think, "I could live here," and next thing you know you're calling a realtor and going around looking at houses. It's changed a lot since we first started visiting back in the eighties but not so much that it doesn't still smell like salt and fish and primeval funk. Makes me feel right at home, having grown up by a river in a fishing village. And the people at the Gibson will welcome us with open arms, or at least a friendly smile and we'll sit on the big wide porch and have a drink and watch the traffic, of which there is not much, and we'll walk down to the water and sit on a dock and ask people what they're catching and we'll go out for supper and we'll celebrate twenty-five years of marriage, which in this day and time is pretty remarkable.
We'll toast to each other and the kids and the grandkid and we'll look at each other and say, "How did this happen? Where did the time go?"
And we'll climb the creaky flights of stairs to our room where we'll sleep together under clean sheets and it will be fine and we'll feel at home in the little town where one day we might have a home.

And on Sunday we'll drive home and get out of the car and look around and if I know us, we'll be glad to be home in Lloyd and really, wherever Mr. Moon is, that is my home, and this life- this life of ours- this twenty-five years together of a life is worth celebrating both there and here and we shall do that.