My grandpa generously passed me his wayward, adventurous nature. My parents taught me how to never take life too seriously and to do what makes me happy. With such significant role models it’s hard to reconcile feeling grief over the loss of someone I never personally knew. When I woke up to the news that Jimmy Buffett died it hit me in a very unexpected way. The essence of his life is so inextricably entwined with my own.
I came of age in Florida where the things Buffett sang about were not some far off fantasy. Both the virtues and pitfalls of paradise were often and literally in my backyard. My favorite drink is a margarita, I love the sour summer freshness of it, and sipping one under a palm tree was not something I had to save up all year and hop a flight to achieve. It was too easy really. Which I suppose leads to the untoward reputation Florida has garnered over the years.
I remember my dad playing his copy of Songs You Know By Heart around the house. I was the only in the University High School parking lot who had Banana Wind in his CD rotation, competing with Green Day and Cypress Hill.
During an existential crisis when I was trying to find my voice in a new city it was Buffett I ran to as a gateway to reacquainting myself with my Florida roots. His clever lyrics and down island sound taught me to write about what I love. In his books I found the confidence to find muse in my own tropical trappings. His writing showed us all that it’s ok for the good guy to get the girl and conquer the day and to do it with a wink of pretense. Following in the footsteps of Jimmy Buffett I began traveling to the Caribbean where I began collecting the experiences that eventually led to starting Pod Tiki.
The first time my wife met my parents was because I took her back to Florida for a Jimmy Buffett/Eagles concert. That was my first time seeing him live - an experience that filled a parrot-shaped hole in my soul I didn’t even know was there. Just to top off the true Orlando experience a rocket launched from the cape cut through a pastel sky above the Citrus Bowl as the Coral Reefers played. A picturesque moment in time that was simultaneously shared with thousands yet seemed to be only for my wife and I.
The next year a friend and fellow parrothead bought my wife and I tickets to Buffett in Nashville. I was hesitant to go at first because I didn’t want to taint the memory of that first experience. But, the seats were practically stageside and seeing him in Nashville was such a different and up close experience.
There’s no way I can recall the litany of Buffett begotten memories that are indelibly part of me. Trips to Margaritaville Orlando with my folks or buddies sharing a plate of nachos while the margarita volcano erupted, sipping beers by the Hemisphere Dancer resting in the lake, visiting Margaritaville’s in Jamaica with my best friend, Mexico with my wife, all over Florida including Key West, Tennessee with my friends and even throwing dice at the Las Vegas location.
Jimmy Buffett provided the same modality for escapism we get from descending into Tiki bars. Where exotica dwells in the realm of fantasy, the Caribbean of Buffett’s world presents itself as attainable, which is why I believe so many escapism junkies found it attractive.
That lifestyle is part of who I am. Not just the bars and beaches, but a mentality that affects how I move through life. As a protean paragon of paradise Jimmy taught us how to incorporate all our experiences into the narrative of our lives. If there’s too many influences to describe who and what makes you, then you’re doing it right.
The morning I got the news about Jimmy Buffett’s death the world was normal. The dog went outside, my wife groaned into her pillow as the coffee grinder whirred, and people perambulated about town like nothing had changed. Perhaps because in a way - it didn’t. My love for Buffett falls in his art, lifestyle and the kinship of what it meant to me on a deeply personal level. In this way my relationship with Buffett is not over.
The words are still there on the pages of my worn copy of A Salty Piece Of Land. The songs still crackle on from my vinyl of A1A. I can still order a margarita at a beach bar and toast the man whose life is the essence of an idea about a notion. A web of a life that expands and joins together so many facets of the human experience. The world may have lost a man, but it will never lose Jimmy Buffett.
A lyric that always resonates with me is “That’s why we wander, and follow la vie dansante. (The dancing life.)” Jimmy taught us how to spin and twirl and moonwalk across the ups, downs, and in-betweens of this crazy spinning rock we’re gravitationally stuck to.
When Jimmy Buffett died I felt like I lost something. Something that was special to me. Something that influenced who and what I am. But the idea survives the man, so I suppose in the end, I truly didn’t lose anything. As long as I keep living, la vie dansante!
