Calmly in the Present

I do marvel at the gentle, calm, and accepting nature of our close friends in the village.  I listen to Guillermo as he describes how life was when he was a boy  -- and mind you, he is younger than I am. Think of it -- how fast and completely utterly, things have changed for him.  In snippets throughout this blog I have mentioned his stories.

He grew up, the eldest of a large family of children, just across the street (which was actually just a flowing stream back then) from where he now raises his family.... A few other farming families were spread out along that creek. Hard to imagine, now, with all the new homes built of cement, and painted in colorful ways.

But.... still, he lives close to his family. His parents live just down the street, and a number of his siblings live very nearby.  They are always visiting and sharing their daily lives, and the kids are all playmates.  Many other families have moved in, and over the years the wattle-and-daub houses are all being rebuilt with cement, modernized...  Nearly everyone has a cellphone, and TVs and ...well, more electronic gadgets than I will probably ever buy.

Just the other day,  Guillermo nonchalantly reminisced again -- describing how, when he was a boy, there were no roads to connect this little village to the outside world.  There were only footpaths through thick jungly growth.  They had to, and did, live self-sufficently with their small gardens, foraging, and the harvest from the abundant sealife.   Too, the jungly growth was filled with such a variety of wildlife... and ah! so very many colorful cacophonous birds, he tells us...

Alas that my Spanish is so basic, for he would be glad to describe more....

The wattle-and-daub homestead that he built for his new bride some 25 years back still stands, right behind him as he talks, still very much in use.  Soon it will fall down and melt away....  With our help, he has constructed a fine new cement home right beside it, complete with a porch for hammocks and a roof on top of which he CAN add a second story later...

I watch and listen quietly, and I see no anger, no sense of sorrow.   His eyes are clear, and he speaks in a gentle, matter-of-fact manner.  He lives very much in the present, accepting and doing his part to guide the changes in a good way.

For instance, these days, he is often away -- attending meetings between the government officials and the fishermen along the coast.  The issue is the very destructive impact wrought upon the coastal waters by the Japanese, who promised to mitigate and remunerate -- but are now reneging on that promise.

It is his calm sense of living fully in the present, without resentment and without lament, that so quietly impresses me...

And as a postscript, how can I not recall  that same acceptance and involvement in the present which I witnessed with my own grandfather whose life spanned 1876-1973, and also my parents whose lives spanned from 1909-1999 (mom) and 1909-2001 (dad).  Well, "hell´s bells" (as my mom would say), even I remember before ballpoint pens (yes, we had inkwells and fountain pens in gradeschool), and I remember how kids used to play together outside (but that was before TV), and I remember when highways were a mere two lanes and had curbs!

What a long, strange trip it is.