We have our origin stories.
And many of us who’ve moved from place to place have our arrival stories, the recollections of when we arrived to arrange our lives in a new or unfamiliar location.
Some people might remember the year they settled in a new home or a new community. Others might also recall the month. Some might remember the full date.
I remember details of some arrivals better than others. As for my arrival to Anna Maria Island after leaving Chicago, I remember the year, the month, the date and the day of the week I came to live here.
I even remember the hour of my arrival.
I began calling Anna Maria home at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 2, 2005.
Weeks earlier I had visited Anna Maria Island by car, at night, for about five minutes before returning to Bradenton to conclude my successful job interview over a meal at a restaurant that no longer exists.
And my wife Connie had never visited.
We had found our landlord and apartment in The Islander classifieds, which also is how Connie found her first job in Anna Maria.
Back then, every square foot on our little island was not digitally mapped for the general public and maybe only the local news and chamber of commerce were publishing chamber-perfect photographs on the internet. So we didn’t know what to expect when we drove north on Gulf Drive past Pine Avenue and turned into the parking outside our duplex.
From the driveway, we could see the Gulf of Mexico and hear the waves.
So we called our landlord to let him know we’d arrived and then walked to the boardwalk leading past the dunes to the beach.
We could have counted our footsteps from the driveway to the beach if we hadn’t been so excited by the natural beauty of our new home.
There were just a few people on the shore and, because everyone knew everyone, our landlord walked right up to us — the newbies, the arrivals but never strangers on AMI — and introduced himself.
He handed us the keys to the one-bedroom apartment where we would live for 13 years and I knew we had won a “luck lottery.”
Connie and I walked north on the beach, as far as we could, as the beach was not as wide as it is today, and then we went “home” to dress for a steak dinner at a waterfront restaurant, followed by our first “sunset.”
I’d seen the sun set, of course.
But the night of Sept. 2, 2005, was the first time I experienced what islanders call “sunset,” a communal happening celebrating the splendor in the sky with the souls on the sand.
I thought then that I’d go to sunset every night, but started a new job on Labor Day 2005 and often didn’t arrive home until after nightfall.
All these years later, I savor each sunset that I catch.
And I still feel like I hit the “luck lottery.”