Jed Wolf

 The north end of St. Augustine’s Anastasia Island was a lowland salt swamp until 1925, when millionaire developer David P. Davis purchased 1,500 acres of sand spit and mangrove swamp and began dredging. No one imagined he’d plunge from a luxury liner’s stateroom window, never to be seen again. The word “shores” usually conjures impressionist paintings, real estate brochures, and gospel lyrics—not developers’ drowning thoughts as their dreams sink beneath the waves.

A hundred years later, during regular flooding in the neighborhood Davis built—where I now live—my zealous need to create reminds me of Davis. The ocean has risen a foot since he lost everything. Breakers are louder than ever as we regularly unclog storm drains, knee-deep in the slosh of calving glaciers. You’d think I’d have learned from growing up on the Connecticut coast not to trust anything, especially the sea, but I was drawn to low-lying St. Augustine despite common sense for some of the same reasons Davis was. Lured by trade winds, stunning architecture, ospreys, dolphins, and sprawling moss-draped oaks, I traded in my bleak yankee spirit and embarked with every piece of my baggage for the good life.

At first, I channeled my energy into gardening, creating a personal Eden in this subtropical paradise. Once my North Florida paradise froze, flooded with salt water twice in one month — koi fish dead as my doornail dream of living outdoors, and after after losing sight in one eye due to a stroke, I thought it might be a sign for me to focus my remaining energy on other things.

Everything, including driving — even navigating my dizzyingly hazy backyard, suddenly required an eye patch. Without depth perception, the joy of gardening significantly decreased, so in lieu of golf, I joined three community choirs and an opera chorus. St. Augustine without a way to enjoy it is like being stuck in a cabin on a Carnival cruise, so despite the challenge of reading music, I waltzed into the First Coast Opera’s “Die Fledermaus” rehearsal like an eager eight-year-old, dependent on charm and talent I was born with.

This is the real deal, I thought, after being glared at for being a few minutes late. Though it requires little besides toasting and minimal singing from the chorus, Strauss’s operetta “The Bat” traditionally performed on New Year’s Eve demands legitimate principal singers. These hired guns in their mid-thirties overflow with confidence, talent, youth, vigor, credentials, and professional egos to match.

As their slack-jawed reaction to my entrance seared into my brain, I didn’t blurt out “Die Augenklappe” (German for “the eye patch”), nor did I joke about being as “blind as a bat” or I say I’d require a pirate song. ” Once I know what I’m doing, I won’t need it for the performances,” I told the room as they blinked back at me. “To the contrary. I like it,” said the director flirting which put me at ease.

Though three rehearsals later, I still felt like a one-eyed cat in an inflatable raft full of divas, early ballroom dancing lessons paid off. I was more comfortable than dancers half my age. “Watch him,” the choreographer exclaimed at my toe-pointed chassé.

Though I achieved zip professionally, trips to and from the lint in my navel and birdlike flights up my own ass as my charming father used to say, had resulted in lots of self expression. I’ve impressed audiences with charisma and talent, and though I’ve written and been in many shows, I never met father’s expectations. Dead or alive, he was in every audience and performing wasn’t fun.

During a break, while discussing Davis Shores’ dramatic origins with a chorus member, the principals launched into a full-throated, six-part rendition of “Happy Birthday,” complete with high C’s.

Face to face with my father’s dashed hopes for me while noticing how relieved I was not to have become a professional opera singer, I felt my envy and touch of vertigo fading. Dropping the urge to write a musical about David P. Davis and the relationship he’d had with his own father, I decided to spend what was left of my life in “the oldest city in the world” and enjoy it.