My friend and I were sitting at the counter of the café in the Dalî Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, when she mused aloud, “I wonder what that dripping is on that bottle?” The bottle was on the serving counter behind the bar where the waitstaff prepared Café Gala’s various liquid offerings. The bottle was shaped as if it had once contained wine, and had a milky liquid in the bottom third. The drippings that my friend was curious about came from the top of the bottle, and appeared to the dregs of that viscous liquid. I registered my friend’s curiosity, then lowered my head again to my plate, and brought another cheese-laden cracker to my mouth. The “Mystery of the Drippings in the Bottle” was not one that I felt any strong desire to resolve.
My friend Lisa has lived in Clearwater Beach, Florida, for 18 years, and I have visited as often as possible. She is a second-grade teacher with a fertile imagination and the inquisitive mind of a . . . 7-year-old. We met when we were both students at Indiana University Southeast; she was the Children’s Hour coordinator and as a volunteer artist for the Campus Activities Board, I would design and illustrate her program’s calendars. On this recent trip to Clearwater Beach, Lisa and I shared the “sunset” experience and she asked a question of everyone she encountered. One evening, on our way to the beach (she lives 5 blocks from the sand and water) we were almost trampled by a bevy of young girls who were galloping from one house to another. Lisa laughed and wondered, “Where are they going? What are they doing?” After watching the phenomenon of the sun’s dipping below the horizon, (on Clearwater Beach, gathering to watch the sun set has become an industry) Lisa asked the gamboling girls — some of whom were playing volleyball — what was the reason for the celebration, and found out it was a birthday party.
I have written of my friend’s joie de vivre; the term “idle curiosity” cannot be applied to her. She is engaged with everything around her and asks the name of almost everyone she encounters, particularly service people. When we went to shoot pool, she seemed to know most of the servers and customers in the places we visited. On the way back to her car, our passage through the tanned and toweled crowds was a series of gentle caroms from friends to acquaintances to strangers. She waved into the windows of the bars and restaurants and stopped to greet and hug people on the pavement. We paused at a bar to hear some local musicians she knows and enjoys, where Lisa introduced me to Beth, the server who delivered our beer and cider. Lisa knows everyone on the beach, because she asks. She knocks on the doors of houses that are architecturally interesting to her, and tells the owners what she likes. She stops driving to watch city employees at work, and tries to determine the task. She asks beach-goers the names of their dogs, and of wading fishermen, what the catch was; at home, we pull out “Florida’s Fabulous Butterflies” to research the identity of the wounded butterfly that is resting atop the brutal blades of St. Augustine grass in her back yard.
The man who waited on us at the café counter told Lisa that the bottle with the drippings were ultra-sweetened condensed milk, for a coffee drink, and as I scooped cheese onto another cracker, I chuckled as I imagined her file of mysteries, with another one solved.