Warm Winter Evening

84 degrees tonight.  The warmest December 2 I can remember having.
But it's a nice warmth...even though I miss the Christmas-y feeling that I usually get this time of year from the cold and coziness of a crackling fire and the warm glow of my family's living room...I still like this summer warmth, the clearest of clear sunny days and bright blue sky, and at night sparkling stars.   I am always hot, and usually sweating, but I am warm and have bare feet and I like it.

Today we brought Nieves down from her hill-top home so that she could see the visiting doctor.  Heather and I got a trike and found our way to her barangay.  We clamored up the even roots and steps to her house and found her eating papaya and laughing.  Her pregnant daughter-in-law was in the kitchen; she came out and smiled at us, her hands resting on her hips, her belly huge.  She is due in about a week.  Nieves had her prosthetic leg on already and had been waiting for us.  We helped her with her crutches and one of her young relatives helped her down the slippery rock steps.  Heather and I flitted nervously behind her, ready to catch if she fell.

Later, Nieves told me of her life and the places she had been.  She is only in her late fifties, but looks older than that.  Losing her leg to diabetes has aged her, I think.  She was a nanny for a wealthy Indian family for nearly 30 years and has visited Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, New York City, Paris, London, Rome, Switzerland....she talks about the places with such a faraway look in her eyes and a slight smile on her face that I can tell she misses it, I can tell she feels resigned to her fate of not having health anymore.  But she looks peaceful, and smiles a gap-toothed smile at me.  She looks sad and wise, like she has seen pain but has accepted it.

Late in the afternoon we walk down to the beach.  The sun is getting low in the sky, but still very bright. We walk south, squinting at the sun's reflection off the ocean.  We walk to where a river runs into the ocean.  Many men are down by the river, stripped down to their underwear and fishing for the tiny fish.  They lift their green, gossamer nets into the river and swing them back up; the sun shines through them and they look like glittering kites.  A little boy peers at us from his perch on a beached fishing boat.  "I love you too!" He shouts over and over at us.  That's one way of being optimistic...

I can hear the crickets outside my window, and if I look directly out I can seen Orion perfectly, my favorite constellation.  It is a winter constellation, and I have to remind myself that it is Winter, and that it is some kind of Christmas, here, too.  Even in my shorts and t-shirt, it is Christmas.