Orlando Face Lift

Four days ago our plane landed in Florida. We boarded the monorail that runs between the terminal and pick-up areas of the Orlando airport. As the doors closed, I noticed a group of men standing together joking and laughing. Their faces were lit with the joy of Florida sun, the promise of golf courses for their Titleist ball caps, and the hope of attractions at Epcot Center. They joked with a stranger and his son about how much things would cost, and how this five-year-old would tap his father for money on this vacation; all in the kind-hearted banter that grows on trees in the Sunshine State.

I thought about what these guys did on the weeks they weren’t on vacation. One was likely someone in the high-powered world of finances, where no one jokes about how much things cost. Another likely did some form of valuable labour—an auto mechanic, maybe?—whose boss is always passing on crap from the customers. A third is probably just making ends meet, who comes home and tells his own children that they can’t have all the money they want, because the stuff doesn’t grow on trees. They may all work in the world of hard labour and disappointment: the grind and the rat race for the ever-shrinking cheese at the end of the maze.

But today—this week—they step off the plane and step out of the maze. They come to a place where the grimace of hard work can give way to the smile of rest; where the furrowed brow of hoarding can surrender to the belly-laugh of spending. They have come to Orlando for their Sabbath rest. They have come to Orlando for a face lift.

And though I can see the scars, Lordy doesn’t that new look make a world of difference?
~ emrys