By Robin Sebolino
Today, I suppose many people shiver in the cold winter, although surely not in tropical countries. Weather is warm in lands close to the equator, like in my archipelago, where walking for a minute under the sun is often enough to make a man perspire. Even when the temperature is supposedly cooler, a warm country would still experience 24 to 31 degrees Celsius. That’s cool enough to get a tropical creature in the mood to sing Frosty the Snowman.
Nobody will find trouble looking for souls who loathe the tropical climate. If they don’t complain about it, they try to ridicule it while scurrying under the shade or hiding within the air-conditioned walls of a shopping center. All year round, the touch of hot air prevails in the tropics. We don’t get the treat of seeing leaves fall. We don’t have long nights and lingering moments with the moon and stars. Brown tropical children don’t wake up in the morning to find their pavements covered in snow, which is a romanticized hope most of them would surely have in response to hot days.
Some people who live in places with four seasons, those who can enjoy the blessings (or curses) of cold nights, might say the transitions from spring to winter are unexciting, a mere natural cycle the planet goes through. That there is nothing to romanticize about. In fact, one might occasionally hear people born in such countries lament the chill. Some would say it’s dull. Very well. Say they think four seasons is nothing special. Granted they live and die bored by shifting seasons. At least they’re bored with more variety. Whereas the victims of tropical heat suffer in the painful monotony of hot mornings and evenings.
I remember one conversation I had with a friend—a person who comes from a four-season country. That afternoon, I spoke of my cherished hatred for Manila’s tropical weather, to which she replied, casually, that I just need to get used to it. I suppose her comment stuck with me. Unsolicited (sometimes insensitive) advice sticks, and hence are more effective. Whether deliberately or not, my mind tried to understand the redeeming qualities of a tropical paradise. I don’t know how it came to me, but during one random midday I suddenly had a more compassionate view of the Philippine climate. The stifling Manila weather deserves far more than scorn, if only because it whispers an important lesson about God’s Creation.
The intense, brutal, unchanging tropical climate is, in fact, immensely dynamic, effervescent, and life-giving. The vibrancy of plants and animals in a tropical environment far outmatch the number of living creatures in temperate (colder) climates. There is a vast amount of food in the tropics. The spices are rich, and the most penetrating and wide-ranging flavors propagate under the blaze of the tropical sun. Tropical energy is so strong that there’s always something to discover, frightening threats and fun treats. There might be a lot of snakes, flies, and mosquitoes in jungles, but there are also cute tarsiers and colorful birds of paradise. The best fruit grows the sweetest in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. Their warm waters give a home to the most colorful marine animals.
But I think the more important thought dawned on me when I observed the tropics alongside the four-season domains of the planet. The movement from spring to winter reflects the journey from birth to death. It’s that cycle showing how every stage has a magic of its own. Budding flowers emerge in spring, which rise to full-grown blossoms in summer. They reach the dignified old age of autumn, withering in the deep backdrops of orange, until the harsh charm of the lifeless white winter arrives. Such a cycle depicts an image of existence—life to death, death to life—a vision of the transitory nature of the universe.
The tropics present quite a different picture. The ever-present warmth of its beaches and vast stretches of green point to a life that endures, sustains, and stays the same regardless. It’s muggy, sweltering, and for these reasons exasperating. But that’s precisely like life itself—full of activity, always a challenge to harness, a gift suitable only for the greatest and most vigorous of human souls. The tropics are unbearable, because they push, embrace, and fill, and their islands do so with passion.
Earth’s four seasons tell us that change is constant, that there is an end to all things, and that in the end new beginnings arise. Meanwhile, the unchanging tropical lands offer a dream for a limitless variety, inexhaustible energy, and I’d dare say everlasting life.