The sun sets quickly so close to the equator. One moment, it hangs in the sky, a fiery red orb pulsating with purple and rose bruised edges streaking out across the edge where sky meets water and earth. And then in one long slow exhale, it slips into the envelope of time waiting to embrace it just beyond the horizon.

“Come here,” time whispers. “Bring your memories of this day spent in paradise by the sea and let me seal them with the sun’s fiery kisses.”

And as the sun kisses the day good-bye, the sliver of a moon appears. She is resting on her back holding the pregnant possibility of full moons yet to come in the dream-filled shadows of her round belly hiding in the velvety dark sky above her.

And all around, stars dance like “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” and night is born.

And the moon rises higher into the deepness of the dark as stories of starry, starry nights and other tales of wonder stream across the sky.

And the stars shimmer and cast their light into the night like fishermen flinging their nets into the water, hoping and dreaming for a bountiful catch.

We are the story-tellers, the dream-makers of this life on earth. We hold the possibilities of a new year dawning deep within the belly of our dreams yet to be told. Dreams of awe and wonder. Stories of grandeur and greatness.

And the old year slips away and a new year rises.

We celebrated the New Year last night. Said good-bye to the old as we sat around a flower adorned table and shared in a feast fit for kings and queens. Guillermo and his brother Carlos and the wonderful staff at Villas Fa-Sol had spent the day preparing the food with loving care and attention. Under the watchful eyes of Gerardo, Villas Fa-Sol’s Manager, they swept the floors and set the table for the twelve of us to dine as one big family.

C.C. and I were blessed to be included in the family circle. I had met Guillermo and his beautiful wife Roscio many years ago in Calgary when they arrived for the Stampede and awed everyone with the splendor of their Mexican ensembles complete with giant sombrero’s and embroidered shirts.

Last night, we dressed for the heat of Mexico. Flowing silks and linens. Bright colors and soft pastels.

Earlier in the day, C.C. and I took a taxi into town where he searched for a bar that had satellite TV, and, was willing to play the World Cup Junior Hockey game between Canada and the US.

It is a small, small world we live in.

As I went wandering the streets and visited the exquisite church at the edge of the plaza and found a lovely woman in a tiny little shop a few blocks away who could give me a manicure, C.C. sat at a bar filled with other Canadians wanting to see their team win. The winning part didn’t happen but for C.C. the big win came in the form of the father and son from Regina, Saskatchewan who sat with him. They know his younger brother, Michael, well. Play golf with him. In fact, the father is best-friend’s with Michael’s wife’s brother.

It’s a small, small world we live in.

Last night we laughed and ate and drank wine and danced late into the night. We twirled and spun as strangers became friends and old acquaintances grew deeper under the star lit canopy of the first night of 2017.

It was a night where memories were made and promises of the possibilities for a new year awoke in an explosion of fireworks bursting across the horizon.

It was a night where our differences dimmed beneath a starry sky as we shared in the things that bind us together. Friendship. Family. Good food. Wine. Laughter and song.

It didn’t matter if we could speak the same language. It didn’t matter if we could sing the words to the song, or dance to the same beat. There is only one language, one song, one beat to remember when friends and family gather around a table under a star studded sky.

It is a small, small world we live in when we share each moment in Love.

Today is New Year’s Eve. A new year awaits upon the horizon filled with all the limitless possibilities that awaken with another turning of a calendar page.

But first, we must celebrate and give thanks for all the prayers that were answered in this year past.

We have been invited to a party at the home of our hosts, Guillermo and Roscio. A few family and friends, he tells me when we meet on the grounds of Villas Fa-Sol, late yesterday afternoon. He is disappointed, though. He was not able to get the live band he wanted. We will have to make do with the speakers and stereo on the patio, he says. And he laughs and gives me his charmingly warm smile before adding, “But first, we will spend the day in the kitchen. Getting ready.”

I offer to come and help. No! No! Not possible. You are our guests. But you are welcome to come and spend the day at our home he offers graciously.

This is a place of warm smiles and welcoming hearts. A place where Mi Casa. Su Casa is imprinted in the DNA of everyone we meet.

We went into town yesterday (a girl needs a new outfit when invited to a Mexican New Year’s Eve Soirée!) and at every storefront, the proprietor stood outside or sat on a chair calling out to us. “Come see! I have…” and he or she would list the multitude of treasures in their store.

They were impossible to resist. Smiles. Cheery voices. An inate ability to sell and a deep desire to please make for an irresistible combination.

I resisted the silver bracelet with gold inlays. For now.

I resisted the pink linen top and matching pants. For now.

And I even resisted the little boy in bare feet who proceeded his father into the restaurant where we sat eating tacos and sipping ice cold Modella. He wanted us to pay his father to play music for us on a wooden xylophone type instrument. “I only listen to music at night,” our friend Andrew told the father. And the man laughed and smiled and waved and Andrew translated for us what was said and we all laughed and smiled together.

After an exchange like that, how could anyone resist dropping a coin or two into the dried coconut shell he held and continuously shook gently in his outstretched hands?

Fortunately, our friends Andrew and Ursula speak fluent Spanish. I can catch words here and there. They come to me through the veil of foreign tongues spoken like prayers whispered at an altar. Some will make it through to the deity above. Some will lay upon the altar, waiting for fate to find them at another time, depending upon how pleasing they are to the ears of the God or gods above. Que sera sera.

Spanish is like that for me. If I listen closely, pay deep attention to the rhythm and flow of the language, I can catch a phrase, a word here, a sound there that is close enough to French, that I sense its meaning.

But, like a prayer whispered to an unseen God, sometimes the words simply flow past me, lost to some whim of fate that only the heavens can divine.

I feel close to the whims of fate here. Close to the Divine. The essence of life. It pulses on the street. It is alive in every thing and everyone.

Voices calling out. Horns honking and music blaring from storefront radios and cascading out from the open windows of cars driving past.

The music is constant. It is everywhere.

A man plays his guitar outside the restaurant where we sit. He sings of his dead cat. His despair. His sorrow. HIs face is weathered and brown from the sun. His eyes glisten, tears welling up, threatening to flow over onto his cheeks.

“It is a sad song,” Ursula calls out to him.

And he nods his head, shrugs his shoulders and replies, “Yes. It is.”

This is a place where the fullness and richness and impermanence of life permeates every scent, every sound, every living thing. Where sadness and joy collide with every breath. Where laughter and tears and dancing and sad song and happy song invade all your senses.

Where children are revered and children are ignored to play and run through traffic and dart amidst diners at tables. They are part of life. Part of the cycle. Part of the unknown destiny that the fates hold instore for each of us.

A child rides on the back of a motorbike, clinging to his mother’s back. She clings to her husband’s waist, her arms wrapped around the infant pressed against his chest as he careens and weaves his way through traffic.

“It is just the way it is,” our host tells us when I comment on the danger.

My western sensibilities want to grab the children from the back of motorcycles and at least put a helmet on them. I want to put shoes on the children before they run into traffic, their hands filled with beaded bracelets and other trinkets to sell to tourists driving by in buses and rental cars.

I want to do these things that fit into the life I hold ‘up north’, from where I come from. I must breathe instead into the possibility that there are many ways to get through this world, and all of them fit the times, the space, the land upon which they are born.

And in this place where ocean breezes dance with ethereal beauty in the gauzy curtains by the windows, where blue sea meets sky at a far and distant horizon and the land rears up in fierce defiance of the sea’s embrace, I must give way. I must give way to my thoughts of how things ‘should’ be and let go of my fierce hold on ‘life as I know it’. I must breathe into life as it makes sense for this time and place. Life in its duality and contradictions. Life that dances in the wind and drifts by in seemingly slow motion while rushing past on motorbikes and passing cars.

“Come into my store,” a woman greets us as we attempt to walk quickly by. “Come. Spend a Mexican minute here. Time will keep moving where ever you go, but in a Mexican minute, time will pass much more pleasantly.”

Yes. Bring on the Mexican minutes where life is as life is and all that matters is to live each moment as it comes and leave the future to unfold in prayers whispered at an altar seeking blessings on a Happy New Year for all the world.

Que sera sera.

The sign as we enter the town of Huatulco reads, Welcome to Paradise.

Sitting in the living room of our suite at Villas Fa-Sol, listening to the sounds of the ocean washing up against the rocks below,  the birds cawing as they glide effortlessly in the air above, I know I am here, right now, in paradise.

I can feel my pulse slowing to the rhythm of the waves, my mind sliding into ease as effortlessly as the birds sliding across the vast blueness of the sky. The white gauzy curtains drift in and out the window with the ocean breeze and I find myself mesmerized by their graceful movements, treasuring this moment, right now.  It is all there is to experience. All there is to know.

One night and I find myself in love with this beautiful place on the shore of the Pacific Ocean.

It is already hot. I feel the heat seeping into my bones, a welcome caress that washes away any last vestiges of winter’s chilly embrace.

It is green here. Lush. Palm trees march up the hillside, their spiney branches splayed out like giant dancers caught mid-leap as they cavorted across the stage to the beat of a Marharachi band.

After C.C.and I savoured a two hour siesta and washed away the grit of our travels, we joined our hosts Guillermo and Roscio, the delightfully warm and gracious owners of Villas Fa-Sol, and our friends Ursula and Andrew who are visiting them from Calgary, for dinner in the town. Che offers up an authentic Argentinian BBQ experience complete with a huge fire pit sending streams of smoke and flames into the air, permeating our senses with rich aromas of roasting meats and cheeses.

Late into the night, we sat around a large wooden table on the verandah that edged up against the street where passersby strolled and threw greetings to friends enjoying BBQ at other tables. We shared stories of our lives, our families, our travels and hopes and dreams and all the while, young children played in and around the tables and waiters darted amongst the guests catering to their every want. Above us, the obsidian sky stretched far into the night, its black essence alight with thousands of twinkling stars.

The air was warm and the night alive with laughter and song.

I am definitely in love. Bewitched but not bewildered by the magic of this place.

Paradise is never bewildering, it is always a delightful encounter with magic. It is always filled with the laughter of new friends and old, of good food and wine and song.

Paradise is never far away. It is always here. Right where I am.