If you’re old enough, you remember Miss America contestants absurdly — albeit politely — dedicating their reigns to advancing world peace. Worthy goal for women who’d just rocked swimsuits and batons. I’d roll my eyes because, well, what else could I do?
Peace. If achieving peace (world or otherwise) were as easy as a Miss America pageant Q&A, we’d be holding hands and singing “We Are the World.” Peace isn’t one-and-done. You don’t “find” peace and hold on to it. You don’t “make” peace and walk away thinking all is well.
Peace can feel like the eye of a hurricane.
If you’ve ever stood transfixed inside one — and few of us have — you’ll never forget how peace works. In the middle of the last century, after hours being buffeted by 100-plus mph winds and higher gusts, my mother looked out the window at clear skies, gentle breezes and made a decision. “Out, out you go,” she said to her oldest three. “Go run off some energy before I lose my mind.”
And out we went, whooping and hollering and childishly marveling at the, well, peace smack in the center of that storm. Peace was fleeting, and within minutes as the winds picked up and the rain battered us, my mother chased us back into the house. That hurricane raged for hours more. It was an extraordinarily dangerous thing for us to do, being outside in the eye of the storm, and I’m certain my mother never did it again.
But, oh, do I remember that inexplicable sense of peace. Just for moments. Not to be repeated. Violence raged around us three kids; we knew that. It would come back full force. But not there. Not then. Peace.
Hurricanes are forces of nature. We cannot control them. Things we can control, our intentions and actions, shape what happens when the storm is past.
Key West has always felt to me like the eye of a storm.
The first time I walked down the airplane steps and stood on the airport tarmac, jet engines whining to a standstill, the air smelling of dead dinosaurs and rotting sargassum, the heat and humidity oppressive, I recognized peace. Decades later every return to the island brings peace — even if I do have to shuffle through crowds and play Hunger Games with dozens of weary travelers seeking luggage.
Key West Peace inside our Key West Bubble
We call it the Key West Bubble. The bubble softens the blows from the mainland’s toils and tribulations. It protects us, or so we believe, from the worst of a season’s hurricanes (though I suspect that has more to do with Cuba’s defensive landmass than a bubble, but I’m sticking with bubble.)
The bubble makes local politics less divisive than headlines from the “real” world. Why? Because on a tiny spit of coral, 150 miles out in the ocean, we darn well have to sand off our rough edges of disagreement if we’re to get anything done. As Monroe County commissioners said a couple weeks ago when trying to figure out how to balance growth and development in a fragile ecosystem with quality of life: “We live here, too.”
Peace on this island, inside the bubble, takes to the streets in Key West’s annual holiday parade. Last Saturday evening I’d lay bets there weren’t more than a handful of residents actually in their homes. We lined the streets and clogged the neighborhoods to celebrate kids and ponies, queens and kings, Jews, Christians and heaven-knows, sweep up Tootsie Rolls and Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups and marvel at monster trucks and enough lights to be seen from space. Hope. Joy. Love. And most assuredly peace, despite knowing the return of life’s storms was but a few moments distant.
Peace is a beach chair tucked into the sea grapes under the Australian pines at Fort Zach. It’s a sunrise at the end of the White Street Pier, where — mostly — everyone understands that whispers are warranted. Peace is my porch just before bedtime when the Christmas lights twinkle and nothing stirs, not even the resident iguana.
Peace is not solely the absence of violence, whether personal or worldwide. Peace is the presence of justice. And justice means fulfilling our responsibility to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, provide rest for the weary and support for the grief-stricken. It means, in short, showing up and doing right by and for those who cannot do for themselves.
Peace can be as simple as a smile for the guy at the checkout, listening to a friend or donating ten bucks to a food drive. It can be as lofty as Miss America’s wish. But peace isn’t magical thinking. Peace happens — fleetingly — only when we work for it.
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