Close Enough to Exhale
Some places don’t ask you to leave your life behind—only to loosen your grip on it.
We drove to PortMiami with the city still half-lit—glass behind us, salt ahead. In the garage, the air carried that familiar mix of concrete heat and sunscreen. Inside the terminal: wristbands, boarding calls, people moving with that contained focus of people trying to leave, without turning it into a story.
On the fast ferry, our daughter looked out the window and watched the wake split the water into clean lines. The distance to Bimini is short enough to feel slightly unreasonable. Two hours on paper. Closer to ninety minutes of open water where the shoreline disappears and, with it, the part of the brain that keeps running lists.
We came for Mother’s Day, but not the version that adds another layer of work. We came for the version that takes something off.
When we arrived, we stepped onto an open tram that ran straight through turquoise—water on both sides, bright enough to make you squint. Low buildings. A road that doesn’t pretend to be a boulevard. Golf carts outnumbering cars. The island doesn’t offer many ways to overcomplicate a weekend. That’s part of the appeal.
At the Hilton, the room door clicked open and I saw it immediately: the swim-out pool right off the patio.
I stopped. Then laughed.
“Wait—we can just… get in,” I said, already setting my bag down.
Because that’s what it meant. Roll out of bed and into the water. No packing. No coordinating. No “after we do this.” The trip itself was already a gift. The swim-out—something we wouldn’t normally spring for—felt like an extra layer of thought, a quiet kind of generosity that landed in my body before it landed in my mind.
We changed fast. We were in within minutes.
After that, the days asked for very little.