orlando: first impressions

So many sections of Orlando seem chincy to me. Weeds and faded pavement and aging one-stories with pink trim. Then there are the little fake oasis spots with three palm trees and a fountain that mark the entrance to every strip mall and Apartment Home complex. The roads are Frogger-special 8-lane behemoths, screaming cars racing by to the next stacked-up stoplight. They slice the suburban landscape, isolating Publix parking lots and Baptist churches and LA Fitness. I’ve been on the apartment hunt. So many smiley people explaining floorplans called “Copacabana” and pointing out granite countertops and Berber carpet and three treadmills + mirror they call a “24-hour fitness center.” Everything is “gorgeous” and “convenient” and “luxury” and “such an amazing price right now.” The apartment that almost won me is in a small, un-Florida New Urbanist community that trades the stucco Outlet Malls for small winding streets, storefront shops, and a neighborhood feel. But at $400 *more* monthly, trendy Baldwin Park outpriced my budget. I’ve resigned myself to the brightly-painted traditional Florida complex complete with miniature lake and yes, a palm tree oasis at the entrance. That’s okay. I’ll adjust. I’m just not sure how I’m going to meet or love my literal neighbors with my “private ground-floor entrance” apartment and a community so certain that nobody walks that they neglected to install sidewalks.

But for my whining, the skies here are optimistically blue and the snowstorms that have made news across the East Coast feel as distant as terrorism or the BBC. The brothers and sisters I’ve met have been warm and hospitable and easily allowed me to slip into their rhythms of life. And the responsibility and opportunity of the ministry here is already in motion—hopeful and exciting. For all my cynical observations, things aren’t bad here.

As long as I can embrace the Flamingo as the representative lawn ornament of Central Florida.

I guess I’ve moved to Orlando.