Miami made me jealous

A weekend moving a friend turned into a reminder of what excites me about life

I helped a friend move to Miami this past weekend. The quick down and back made me realize we should always say yes to adventure. In the midst of upheaval often come moments of clarity and inspiration.

He was deeply grateful I’d agreed to help. His best friend and housemate wasn’t available and he needed to move ASAP after starting a new job.

Would I pack a 26 foot UHAUL and unpack it on the other end in Coral Gables? Yes.

Would it be hot and sweaty and miserable moving bulky bed frames, dressers, couches, and a ridiculously heavy Peloton bike? Absolutely.

Would I quietly curse him for having so much stuff? 100%.

But novelty and excitement have a way of creeping into moves—because they’re the start of a new adventure. New city, new apartment, new neighborhood. New routines and new people.

I love visiting South Florida. Its foliage and nature are more tropical, more dramatic than what we get in Tampa or St. Pete. I can appreciate all natural landscapes, but South Florida is special. There are orchids attached to tree trunks and iguanas living in their branches for pete’s sake.

I left feeling energized by the pure aliveness of Miami. It’s obviously flashy and glamorous and full of stimulation because it’s the cultural capital of Central America—more Spanish is spoken there than English, it seems. It’s intensely wealthy and cosmopolitan—like the rest of Florida on steroids.

And it’s been that way for many years. I’m a film buff and love all the movies and TV shows that have been set there over the years, from The Golden Girls to Scarface to Miami Vice.

There are times when I think I’d love living in a rural setting. There are others, when visiting somewhere electric, that remind me what’s possible and stir up that productive restlessness.

What did Miami make me feel that Tampa hasn’t? The Floridian Amtrak train ride back to Lakeland, where I left my car, allowed me to reflect on the weekend.

Miami was dynamic and visually rich in a way I don’t often experience in Tampa. The taste level, the global influences, the wealth and prosperity and style and beauty and design are all intoxicating.

In many ways it felt reminiscent of Los Angeles—the reasons I loved LA for so many years were similar. Excitement, activity, stimulation, options, flavors, and flair. Abundance of good options.

I found myself feeling jealous of Dylan’s new apartment on the edge of Coral Gables—walking distance to the restaurant-lined Miracle Mile and a short drive from Coconut Grove’s boutiques.

I’m aware that not every Miamian gets to live in such surroundings. There are plenty of scarred, unloved, and dilapidated corners of the South Florida metro. But in many ways it felt ‘right’ even as we snaked through Hialeah in search of a decent coffee after dropping the UHAUL.

Perhaps novelty—and that adventure I spoke of—is always charming, especially when it’s been a while since the last adventure.

Our drive down from Lakeland might have been my favorite day. Packing the truck wasn’t great, but caravaning along the back roads listening to my mom’s favorite musician—Pat Metheny—while passing her hometown of Lake Placid fed my soul. Florida is renowned for its beaches and coastline, but the center of the state has its charms. For one, it’s almost completely empty and there was no traffic.

U.S. 27 runs along the “ridge” that is Florida’s highest elevation, where cattle, corn, watermelon, and sugarcane are farmed. We stopped outside Clewiston along the banks of Lake Okeechobee—a place I’ve passed or been near many times but never actually seen.

My copilots were Poopsie the chihuahua and Nugget the pomeranian.

In Dylan’s Volkswagen GTI, dodging speeding drivers and passing neon-lit signs and highrises, it felt a lot like playing MarioKart’s Rainbow Road.

We arrived late, brought only the essentials up into the 2nd floor unit, and collapsed into a heap. The next morning we emptied the remaining items from the UHAUL and returned it, meandering back toward lunch in Coconut Grove via South Beach and Downtown Miami.

The sheer scale of Miami is striking. The cruise ships are taller, the engineering feats more daring (like a tunnel to the Port of Miami in an environment famous for having a high water table).

The architecture is richer and more textured. Space is tight and infrastructure literally overlaps—there’s now a walk-bike path underneath the commuter rail line called “The Underline”. Every square inch is appropriated, but it all works somehow and still feels human-scaled.

Many parts of urban Miami feel a lot like Mexico City did—urban but natural, wild yet orderly. A constant dance between people, cars, and historic apartment buildings with jalousie windows. So dang chic!!

I found myself wistful and anxious. Frustrated with my current chapter—unemployed, looking for full time and consulting work, feeling little progress, wanting to get on with my career and be back to forward movement—while envious of Dylan’s new life and the excitement ahead. I felt the pangs of life in LA—busy, making decent money, having fun with my friends every weekend, bouncing between parties, events, work, gym, and cultural outings. Dressing up, taking pictures.

All the while, I know life in South Florida must be almost as exhausting as LA was—crowded, congested, pricey, stratified. Still, I loved what I saw and how I felt.

We walked Dylan’s dogs across the border into Coral Gables—through a gate at the end of his block—and into another world. The houses change from duplexes to historic Mediterraneans and mini mansions. The foliage becomes even more exquisite. Even the street signs are different—little ground-level concrete blocks painted white with black lettering, all Spanish names. Southwest 26th Street turns into “Romano Avenue” in The Gables.

It reminded me a lot of Beverly Hills and the areas of LA that were beautiful but bland. There seemed to be less distance separating neighborhoods in Miami—it’s sprawling, but not 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there. And somehow, people seemed friendlier. We decided it was the Latin cultural influence of South Florida.

Cities—meeting, knowing, and enjoying them—are one of my favorite experiences in life. They’re all different, no two alike, centers of business and artistry and creation, all designed and planned differently according to geography, topography, and climate.

There are times when I think I’d love living in a rural setting—just peace and quiet and the rustle of trees. Simplicity and slowness.

Then there are others, like this weekend, when visiting somewhere electric reminds me what’s possible and stirs up that productive restlessness. I imagine all the fun I could have, all the fascinating people I’d meet and creative work I could be a part of in an environment that would appreciate it.

Tampa will always be home, and it’s growing up. But visiting Miami reminded me how far we have to come culturally, in our taste level, and how much time (and money, and a mix of cultures and industries) it takes to truly make a place worldly, cosmopolitan, and viscerally dynamic.

It was a whirlwind weekend adventure—not much rest, lots of moving—but I was happy I agreed to go, and happy to have had a little sprinkle of energetic inspiration. Those moments are data about what moves us, what excites us, and what we value in life.

There are times to rest and be still. But given the option, I rarely regret when I say yes to the adventure.