The Annual Migration of The Snow Birds

Each spring,a time arrives when our winter in Key West must end. We snowbirds move north, back to our other lives. Pete and Jane, who must cross the Gulf of Mexico and travel upstream against the currents of the Mississippi River to Minnesota, are always the first to leave. I have a special admiration for Jane, who despite being on oxygen and in a wheel chair chooses not to miss out on any of life. All week, friends have been drifting away, some by car, but more often by boat.

As they leave the pier, we gather to blow our conchs, the melancholy song of the snowbird. The boats slip through the mooring field and out into the channel, day by day, one by one, until all the snowbirds have left.

I am reminded of a day in Spain when I watched a festival in the park below our house. Everyone was in costume, music thrilled, sevillanas were danced, horses broke into sudden gallops through the crowds. At once, gunshots were fired, a signal for departure and all the happy people climbed into oxcarts, and horse drawn carriages, and decorated pick-up trucks with blaring Spanish music. They climbed two and three at a time onto magnificent, broad backed Andalusian horses and they all rode away and their music diminished behind them.

Leave-taking has such poignancy. We know that life will never be the same. We will never have this winter with its own particular combination of joy and friendship again. Whatever the future holds, this time has passed into memory and we cling to the moment until the boat rounds the corner, leaving our sight, and the last mournful note of the conch floats away with the breeze.