Where the Wild Things Are…
When I first moved to Florida, I lived in a pristine, gated community.The streets were vacuumed, the palmettos pruned, the bordering golf course fairways were green and flat as pool-table felt. Even the alligators were culled when they got big enough to threaten lapdogs; trussed up in duct tape and removed to the Everglades by wildlife removal experts in starched jumpsuits.
One night I was coming home from the bars (I should not have been driving) and as I went through the gate, and into the no-man’s land before the houses began, a big cat ran across the road and onto the 3rd hole. I thought it was delirium tremens…
I’m not talking about a little, slinky housecat – this was 150 pounds of wild cat. It paused in my headlights and ran off with the jerky, front end heavy gait of the mechanical terror-dogs in the movie Ghost Busters. I was so shocked, I turned around and went back to ask the gatekeeper, “Did I see what I just saw?” He told me it was a Florida panther: a final holdout who lived in the remaining, untouched wetlands and came out to feed at night.
Nice kitty, kitty…
That image has remained in my mind for 20 years: the skittish beauty of a misplaced, wild thing. It comes back to me often these days, when I start a conversation with someone who is thinking about quitting drinking. Sometimes it feels like feeding a wild animal in the back yard…
I can usually tell when someone is ready to talk about their drinking problem. I never ask. I wait. It’s like leaving a steak on the picnic table and hightailing it back to the house to watch from a window. Will the panther take the offering? And when he does, is he hungry enough, will he trust me enough to come back?
Today I’m not drinking because I’m providing food for thought…
