Crazy from the heat

I didn't realize that we, well certainly not I, are nakeds.  Everyone in my family, once they are safely in the house and away from prying eyes, strips down to their Sunday best.  Virginie keeps on her diaper as her one year old status would warrant, and I sometimes put on a swim suit, wary of the jiggly bits doing lots of jiggling.  But it is really hot here, often hotter in the house than outside and sweating it out in clothing, even the lightest cotton seems ridiculous.  Nearly all the pictures we take of the girls I have to tell Didier, "Please make sure you get some where all the nudity isn't hanging out so we can post them or send them to my parents."  It started out about the heat, but I also want the girls to feel comfortable with their bodies and the way for them to own their bodies and love them is to see us all doing so.

But Didier took it to a new level yesterday.  Lily was at school and I was trying to put Virginie to sleep.  In our garden, there is a small hole, well groove really, where a tree used to stand but had been removed.  While I was nursing the little one and trying to get her to sleep, Didier began a replanting project.  He'd taken a palm tree that was nestled next to the guesthouse in a shaded area and dug it out of the ground, carried it by its long neck to the groove, which he had now dug into a hole, and planted it securely in the ground.  I came out to the patio to find him panting, soaked from head to toe in sweat, and completely naked carrying  a bucket of soil in one hand and a bucket of old, empty coconuts in the other.  (He'd used the coconuts to fill the hole for a few days while he decided what to do with it apparently.) 

There was soil all over his body and his face was red, probably from all the labor, but just as likely from the rum and Coke he'd had before beginning this project.  His body was glistening with sweat and he had this silly grin on his face that said "Crazy from the heat, " which he clearly was.  I asked him politely if it was his aim to have a heart attack or get heat stroke working in the middle of the day but he told me that this hole had been annoying him and he had to fill it at just that moment.

The truth is, the tree looks lovely there and the image of my naked chef walking through the garden doing work certainly didn't hurt the eyes.  It was nice to fall in love again with this crazy French guy. 

When we leave here, the new tenants will love their palm tree and never know how it got there.  But I will.


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