Well, Well, Well…

My grandparents had a condo on Key Colony Beach in the Florida Keys.

The condo had three units.

The middle unit was shaped like a large rectangle with the front of the building facing the parking lot and the back building facing a large saltwater pool, large concrete tables (less likely to be dragged into the ocean during a tropical storm) and benches, a ring of lounge chairs and little tables around the pool, a fishing pier and the Atlantic Ocean just feet from the sand right below and beyond the pool deck.

Flanking either side of the middle building was a square shaped building, each with its own central courtyard and open breezeways connecting the three stories and the pathway out to the pool, dock and little beach.

When it was too hot to be in the pool in the full sun of the afternoon, I'd play in the courtyard. There were little paths lined with pinkish pavers cutting through the rest of the garden, long dead and bleached white coral chunks served as edging, large tropical plants, palm trees, and even some cacti grew in the white marble chipped beds with coral edging. There were lizards and butterflies and tree frogs and later when I got older, more and more iguanas.

But my favorite part about the courtyard was the wishing well.

Only Nana and Grandpa's courtyard had a wishing well. There was a little bucket on a rope, a shingled roof, cedar shingles around the base, and a little crank to wind the bucket up. The little well sat in the center of the courtyard over a little drain, a landscape light in the center that would illuminate the well at night.

Secretly I had always wished there would be a deep pool of turquoise waters at the bottom of the well and I'd double check every time... just in case... you know... someone was out there fulfilling wishing well wishes.