A Morning on the Porch at Our Jungle Home (During Our Last Days Here)
Photo by J. Sharland Day
It’s early Sunday morning. I am alone on my porch at my house because my husband is traveling and won’t be back for two more days.
It’s very still out here. The village we live in has not awakened.
My attention becomes focused on a constant soft bird call that sounds close yet far away. The constant chirpchirpchirp modulates and then decreases in volume but never deviates tempo — like a squeaky wheel. The bird seems to have amazing breath control with its continuous call and I’m curious about its origin. I hear it every morning but this morning it seems especially lonely. Maybe it’s my own loneliness from the absence of my lover that is making my ears hear this sound as forlorn, I wonder to myself.
While the jungle begins to awaken, I hear another chirrup or two with an answering call in the distance. There will be more, I know, that will include the coos of doves with an answering response, the shrill whistles of the grackles, as well as the conversations of the small, yellow orioles that always make me smile. I hear these sounds each morning; they are my own ‘wake-up’ calls from my early morning grogginess of rising before dawn.
I soon see the jungle palms and the mammoth banyan tree with giant-leafed pathos hiding its trunk begin to show definition. The sun is rising.
The coolness of the morning air will begin to feel humid from the warmth of the sun just before it begins to heat. And that is when I’ll shed my wrap and start to burn the copal sticks. I will need to drive away the marauding mosquitoes that will awaken hungry for their blood supply. I don’t want to donate.
The bird sounds have amplified. I smell coffee brewing. I hear dishes clattering. Neighbors are awakening. The morning has begun.
I have gone through this ritual each morning for the last twenty years when coming to live for the winter season in the tropics on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. This month will be our last. We have sold our palapa that has given us such pleasure and shelter.
But now we have other adventures to find, other experiences, and places to fall in love with.
We will miss this special place, our friends, the mornings hearing the jungle awaken. Now I am eager to see my husband again, to feel his arms around me, his lips, his body against mine. I am also eager to pack up the truck he is bringing down for the treasures we will keep from this home we’ve made, along with their memories. The rest of the contents will stay for another owner to appreciate and enjoy while they sit out under the porch roof and listen to the bird sounds as they awaken. I hope they love it as much as I do and I hope my memories of those sounds will never fade.
Photo by J. Sharland Day