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There are no Maps to Find it: A Year of Undoings
I once stood in a river that covered nearly two million acres: a giant, beautiful, slow-moving river, otherwise known as the Everglades in southern Florida. A vanishingly small percentage of the Everglades is paved, and in the rainy season, its acres of sawgrass marsh are completely submerged. A wild territory largely untouched by humans, the area was occupied by indigenous communities such as the Calusa and Tequesta Tribes who were decimated following Spanish colonization and later the American Revolution; today, the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes remain. Eventually “Gladesmen” settlers learned to live in the inhospitable environment before the land was federally designated as a protected park and reserve land in 1947.
While the Everglades border the tropical, with bright hues of green, aquamarine, blue, and straw, its mysterious and foreboding atmosphere invokes a sense of danger, of sublime akin to a Gothic medieval cathedral or Ann Radcliffe novel. Where fresh and saltwater intermingle, the interlocking roots of mangrove forests create labyrinths and flying buttresses. Sharply-pointed spires rise in Cypress tree domes, large expanses of stained glass reflect in estuarine waters, and clustered columns are an understory of saw palmettos. That monstrous terror moving slowly through the shallows is not a figment of my imagination; it is the alligator.
