Jennifer Merril, Author at The Parklander Magazine - Connecting you to our community

May 13, 2022May 17, 2022

Society of the Four Arts: Soaking in art, culture, nature, and inspiration

As part of the art class in my 55+ community, we go on field trips to different art museums and exhibits in the area, led by our teacher and artist-in-residence. For our most recent trip, he took us to the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach. There we discovered a gorgeous campus of buildings and gardens in the heart of the island.

Although we traveled there to see an exhibition called “In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870–1940”(which has since moved on), we got a lot more from this trip than expected. The Four Arts campus includes the spacious art gallery, “Campus on the Lake” cultural programs in various buildings, a library and children’s library, a sculpture garden, and a lush botanical garden.

Our group started in the spacious art gallery for the seasonal exhibition ($10 each, prepaid), and after viewing the impressive paintings in all of the rooms, we ventured outside, where we were greeted by tranquil gardens and more art.

The Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden and the Four Arts Botanical Gardens, two distinct gardens, have provided a natural oasis in Palm Beach since 1938. You can get away from stressful daily life and stroll through this peaceful maze of floral paths with ponds, benches, fountains, and lush foliage. One of my favorites was the unique Chinese Garden, where you can go through a pagoda-style entrance and grab a solitary moment to meditate and get lost in the quiet beauty of this walled-off part of the gardens.

The other gardens, or outdoor “rooms,” are the Fragrant Moonlight Garden, Palm Garden, Bromeliad Garden, Jungle Garden, Spanish Façade Garden, Formal Garden, Tropical Garden, and Madonna Garden — each one more breathtaking than the last.

The sculpture garden gave our art class more culture to soak in outside. The heart of this garden is a plaza paved in quartzite encircling a beautiful octagonal fountain. Bronze figurative sculptures are scattered throughout the garden in settings both formal and informal. Our group of budding artists enjoyed wandering around and stopping to take in the sculptures at our own pace. We moved wherever our spirit took us. It was a perfect field trip for our group.

The Society of the Four Arts has lots more for visitors to do and plenty of parking space to accommodate them. In addition to viewing the art in the Esther B. O’Keeffe Gallery, which changes every so often with temporary, traveling exhibits, one can enjoy workshops, lectures, music, films, book discussions, and plenty of programs for children, including floral design and storytime.

Examples of upcoming book discussions on campus include “You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War” (May 17), “Robert Macomber, Code of Honor” (June 8), and “The Churchill Sisters: The Extraordinary Lives of Winston and Clementine’s Daughters” (June 21).

Or just go to the Four Arts to take in the fragrant, verdant gardens and get inspired by your surroundings. You’ll be glad you did.

For more information, go to fourarts.org.

February 18, 2022

Exploring a ‘secret’ beach at Hobe Sound

A friend recently told me about a secluded, “hidden” beach along the Atlantic coast that she had heard about, and we decided to go see it for ourselves. We picked a nice October day, partly sunny but not too hot, to head to the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge. We would make the drive to this beach, explore the area, and hopefully add to our seashell collections. I had started mine after moving to Florida in 2020.

I picked up Susan and we drove north, heading through Palm Beach County and past the beautiful seaside town of Jupiter with its striking red lighthouse, and then crossed the border into Martin County, quickly approaching Hobe Sound. It is an unincorporated area adjacent to the ocean along U.S. 1 and A1A.

Our directions took us onto a barrier island and we headed east on a very peaceful road flanked by banyan trees on either side. As that road ended, we came upon the Hobe Sound Public Beach, which was hopping with people and a pretty full parking lot. That was not our final destination, as we were seeking the more private, “secret” beach.

We turned left and went down a different road passing lushly landscaped home properties as we got further away from the sounds of the busy life behind us, before approaching a quiet gravel parking lot. Parking here is not free, and Susan had read up about the place online, so she had purchased a $5 parking pass and printed it out, and I set it on my dashboard. So now we were ready to explore.

Susan had brought bags for us to collect shells in, and after we put on our hats and sunscreen, we climbed some steps up to a wooden walkway that overlooked the beach. We immediately saw the beautiful aqua water in front of us. To the right, Jupiter was off to the distance, and on the left heading north, far away, were the beaches and towns of the Treasure Coast.

We descended onto the hot sand and walked over to the lapping waves to start our beach walk. There were just a few people here and there, some with fishing rods looping over into the water, which we navigated around as we walked north along the ocean’s edge. But basically, it was a very quiet, remote beach with no signs of commercial life anywhere: no water sports, nobody trying to rent us umbrellas and beach chairs, no snack bars, not even trashcans in sight. It was an unguarded beach, so swimmers were on their own.

We could look in all directions and see no development nearby, which was a welcome change from most beach areas. Lovely wild vegetation was at our backs as we faced the ocean. The Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge also has a nature center north of where we were, but we had found out it was closed at this time.

From the start of our walk, we were able to find a plethora of shells in the sand. As we ambled along, I leaned over every few feet and grabbed a few winners, seeing shells in colors and shapes and stripes that I hadn’t collected before. We continued picking up shells along with rocks and other ocean treasures as we walked along the shore.

We took photos of the quiet landscape after we had walked for a while, admiring the beautiful sky that day — blue with many puffy strands of white clouds. The water was clear and colorful; it was all so tranquil here. No traffic sounds, no noise pollution, not even people talking. Not a bad place to be!

Once our bags were full, we turned around and walked back south, with the water now on our left side. Done with collecting shells (and my lower back would thank me), we waded in the water, gleefully getting splashed as the waves increased. Cooled off, we then headed back toward where we had entered the beach.

It was a nice time on a peaceful beach, and I enjoyed the private nature of it. On the flip side, when we climbed the wooden walkway on the way to the car, with our feet and legs covered in sand, there were no water showers anywhere for rinsing off the sand. So I guess that’s the price to pay for a secret beach: no city-style amenities like you’d see at the public beaches.

We had a very simple outing at Hobe Sound, but one much appreciated for its natural beauty and rare stillness. And I have new shells now to display in my living room.

August 22, 2021August 3, 2021

Beautiful Japanese gardens right in our backyard

After I moved to South Florida last summer, I heard about the numerous wetlands walks, nature preserves, and wildlife parks in the area. I was planning to explore many of them, especially if they were all outdoors, as it was still the middle of the COVID pandemic.

One place that was recommended to me often was Morikami Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. So I decided to go there with relatives when they came to visit. And I liked it so much, I went back again a couple months later with other visiting family members.

The first time I went, I was floored by the beauty and tranquility of the park. I’ve been to many botanical gardens and similar lushly landscaped parks, but I hadn’t been to one like Morikami before. They call it “Roji-en: Garden of the Drops of Dew,” and it was designed by Hoichi Kurisu. The park comprises six distinct gardens that are inspired by significant gardens in Japan.

After arriving, you go through a large building that houses the museum, gift shop, and café, and once outside, you descend down a wide staircase to a utopian setting below. There is a gorgeous pond in the center, with walkways that lead to the left and right of it, which make a large circle meandering through the different gardens around the pond.

In addition to the abundant trees, topiaries, plants, flowers, stone structures, and bubbling brooks, we enjoyed peeking over bridges and seeing fish, turtles, and even an alligator sunning itself in the pond. In the various quiet oases we found, one highlight was the traditional bonsai garden. And we discovered other peaceful green corners where we could immerse ourselves in the serenity and zen of the place.

Being from out of state, I was surprised to learn about the century-old connection between Japan and South Florida, where “a group of young Japanese farmers created a community intended to revolutionize agriculture in Florida,” according to Morikami literature. My mom and I were fascinated to hear about the rest of its history:

“In 1904, Jo Sakai, a recent graduate of New York University, returned to his homeland of Miyazu, Japan, to organize a group of pioneering farmers and lead them to what is now northern Boca Raton. With the help of the Model Land Company, a subsidiary of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad, they formed a farming colony, Yamato, an ancient name for Japan.

“Ultimately, the results of their crop experimentation were disappointing and the Yamato Colony fell far short of its goals. By the 1920s the community, which had never grown beyond 30 to 35 individuals, finally surrendered its dream. One by one, the families left for other parts of the United States or returned to Japan.

“In the mid-1970s, one of the last remaining settlers, George Sukeji Morikami, then in his 80s, donated his land to Palm Beach County with the wish for it to become a park to preserve the memory of the Yamato Colony.” Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens debuted in 1977, as a living monument and a bridge of cultural understanding between George Morikami’s two homelands.

After we learned about the history of the place and strolled through all its verdant gardens, my family and I walked over to the open-air terrace café and had delicious Bento Boxes for lunch.

It was quite a day enjoying what are the most authentic Japanese-style gardens outside of Japan and then topping it off with an equally authentic Japanese lunch.

To visit, go to https://morikami.org.

Jennifer Merrill is a recent transplant to South Florida from northern states.

July 15, 2021July 12, 2021

Sunshine, Wildlife, and Cane Toads: My First Year in the South

A year ago, I moved to southeast Florida from northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Besides arriving in a new part of the country in the middle of a pandemic, which presents its own set of challenges, I encountered a lot of new and different things to contend with in my adopted state.

Born and raised around Chicago, I moved to the D.C. area after college, got married and raised kids there, and then decided to move to Florida after a divorce and job layoff last year. Why not start fresh in a new place, where I wouldn’t have to deal any longer with snow and ice? The lingering image that had always been in the back of my mind was to someday live in a warm and subtropical place, surrounded by palm trees, and somewhere near the ocean. And so that’s what I ended up doing when the opportunity unexpectedly presented itself.

I took the settlement checks from both my divorce and my full-time job and put them toward the purchase of a nice “villa” home in Florida. And so in July 2020, I suddenly found myself moving still further south and east from where I had originally started (cold, windy Chicago). My dog Lex, a Pomeranian mix, and I arrived last summer to this sunny and humid part of the country and began to put down roots, and I soon discovered a lot of differences here.

I have no regrets, but here are some observations from my first year in Florida:

Lizards in the house. I didn’t know that there would be so much wildlife around my new neighborhood. While I appreciate all the birds, geese, ducks, and rabbits lollygagging around my lakeside community, and I’ve gotten to enjoy the various lizards darting around the lawn, I didn’t expect to be sharing my home with the geckos. These quick creatures like to sneak into the house and creep around the rooms, hang out on the ceiling, and pop out and startle me.

Cane toads that could kill my little dog. Of all the animals I’ve encountered in southeast Florida, including alligators at the wetlands reserves, the scariest for me are the ugly toads that secrete powerful toxins that could take out Lex, horribly and painfully, within 30 minutes if I’m not constantly vigilant outside.

Hurricanes! Two weeks after I moved to Florida last July, Hurricane Isaias hurdled in from the Atlantic and joined me here. I got a very quick lesson on preparing for tropical storms and securing my hurricane shutters. While my windows were tightly covered for a couple tumultuous days, it was dark and depressing in my house. I was so happy when Isaias finished up his visit and rolled away.
Gated communities. Yes, I live in a secure, gated community, and as a single woman residing alone, I am relieved to have that protection. But what I have found in this part of the country is that there are so many gated communities that it’s not easy to just drive through neighborhoods here and explore. When I lived in Virginia, I could run through any neighborhoods I felt like. Here, I can’t do that. I have to keep to my own community or on the busy roads around it.
More tattoos than I’ve ever seen before. I didn’t know before my move that Florida was the land of full-body tattoos. While I have had friends and family in my life who have sported one or two small tattoos, I was in for a surprise when I arrived here and saw that they are etched all over people’s faces and limbs, in every corner of the region.

Like the colorful tattoos, I am getting used to all the differences in southeast Florida. I enjoyed my first warm winter here, although I missed the changing of the seasons in the fall and the spring. But I am glad my winter coat is packed far away in a bin in the closet, and I don’t ever have to shovel out my car again. I’ll take it.