Ta-Weeet-Ta-Weeet-Ta-Weeet.

The birdsong is sharp and insistent, a top note, a line of soprano. Beneath it is a constant throaty coo-coo-coo, the seemingly infinite through-line of a dove. Coo-coo-coo…

Wait.

The cooing has stopped. Now I can focus on the slight chattering of the palms as they whisper in the morning’s soft breeze.

Barely discernible in the distance is the faintest foot-felt vibration of bass. I’m no longer sure if it’s more of a remembered sound, a far-off pounding of the surf that is known to be there than one directly experienced at this moment.

The gurgling coo of the pigeon starts again. A dog barks. Others answer. The smells of the previous day’s wood smoke is gone.

There is just the aroma of the drying grasses. Now, a distant rooster.

The colours of our casita, even in the softer morning light are a jungle brilliance. Pepto-pink, turquoise, emerald, indigo, snapping in contrast with buttercup, goldenrod, lime, magenta, grounded by shellacked black doors, giant terracotta pots bound with black iron bands and rebar legs, the intense greens of fan palms, the variegated buttercream and kelly-green of large leaves and the waxy shine of draping ivy-like vines filled with lemony flowers.

The day is waking to itself, full of all that might be possible without striving, without ambition.

Ta-weeeet. Ta-weeeet. That bird sounds louder. Closer. The bark of that dog is closer too.

The beach towel on the upstairs rail moves slightly in the breeze; mauve and pale blue squares bordered with yellow.

I want this morning coffee to last for hours. Let it be as everlasting as this soft air, these almost-cool breezes. Let these first moments stretch.

Yet I know.

I know what is coming.

The heat. Like a wall. The heat that feels like a giant iron pressing me to the pavement. The heat that reminds me that my skin is white and fragile and easily burned. Soon, the sweating that will encompass my entire body, from my eyebrows to my toenails.

It is a hemmoraghing sweat; an enveloping heat that removes all ideas of things to do or places to see. Instead, I succumb to an overwhelming lassitude as the scorching sun creates rivulets down my back.

There is only one approach that is possible.

I give up.

I completely give up to it all.

I surrender to the tiniest of ants that highway down the kitchen walls, that invade the sugar and swirl on the floor.

I surrender to the bigger ants that march through the open doors, doors that are flung open in a desperate and useless attempt to cool our little casita.

Occasionally I sweep, feeling not a hint of guilt as I crush their little bodies in brushing arcs, knowing it is futile and, that somehow, impossibly, more armies will arise from their ranks.

I surrender to my sticky clothes, my plastered hair.

I surrender.

Instead, I sink; over and over into the cooling effects of the pool. My own continous baptism and redemption.

Later, we walk on the shady side of the street. We head to the beach.  Prone on chaise lounges under large umbrellas.

We read. We wait. We nap. We read. We wait.

Finally, the sun burns down into the sea and releases us to moonlit breezes on the beach, to pockets of live music, played with saxophones that soar with the surf.

Icy cold margaritas. Crisp seafood. Creamy avocados.

All thoughts have been burned out by the day. And now, there is nothing to fill our brains but the musical notes that hang rich and resonant in the dark.

Hurtle home in a hot taxi.

Collapse into the pool one last time, crawl under the mosquito net that sways from the fan that pushes hot air from the corner.

Sleep in a deep torpor, the stunned sleep of the heat-punched.

Wake again to the Ta-Weeet.

Listen to the infinite cooing of the dove, the yellow birds…the hot coffee, the opening day.

It is another day to hang suspended, freed from all ambition, unable to do much more than slump in the hot shade within the deep heat that is Puerto Escondido.