“Miami Christmas”

Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Miami, FL.

27-Dec. -2025

It was late December, the sun beating down on me, and my pale skin and light eyes were proof that, for once, I was the invasive species. Or at least, that’s how it felt.

It was my first Christmas with my husband’s family, and I was the resident blanquita. He’s Cuban—as is the rest of his family—and I am, by contrast, old-fashioned, homebrewed Flo-Grown. Needless to say, my white ass stood in stark contrast to the tanned and toned beaches of Miami.

Yet somehow, I was completely in my element. Growing up on Florida’s east coast, this shoreline felt like an extension of the one I was raised on. And though the language was different, beach conversations don’t really need the same language to be understood anyway.

After some time in the water, I wandered back up to shore, unpacked my sketchbook and paints, and got to work.

I’ll admit I was nervous at first—nervous I wouldn’t be able to converse the way I wanted to, or show them who I really was. But something about painting seems to transcend language. It communicates without words.

As I painted, the piece slowly became more than just the scene in front of me. It held the sand from my cousins building sandcastles, the water dripping off my uncle as he dried in the sun, the conversations with my mother-in-law, my aunts, and my grandmother.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just painting the beach.

I was painting my new family.

And much to my surprise, I found that I clicked right into place.

Maybe we didn’t share every tradition. Maybe we didn’t speak the same language.

But that afternoon in the sand, I learned that we had far more in common with each other than not.