Travel Newsletters
The First Newsletter from Bali
Living in a foreign country, acquiring many new language skills while balancing on the edge of mountains, swamp infested, I think I said, while swatting mosquitoes the size of garbage cans can cause one to misjudge one's actions…yesterday I sent you an email with an attachment that had gibberish in it, but no promised story…
So today I am resending the story below, and it is my hope that you enjoy it…
Bali: A Journey Through Hearts
Steve's Newsletter: 1
Dreaming last night under a ceiling pounded by thunder and rain, brilliant flashes of lightning against my eyelids, closed in undisturbed sleep. When I woke for breakfast under blue skies, my friends told me of the evening storm and over black, black Bali coffee I quietly thought of how I came to be here.
I remember a woman, of course. Years have passed since we first spoke. She had become my good friend because she filled my imagination with colorful stories of her childhood growing up amongst ancient stone Indonesian temples dedicated to Buddha and the Hindu gods of Earth, Wind, Fire, Air and Water…and because when she walked she moved with the natural grace of a practiced dancer. Years have passed since we last spoke, yet her stories continued to grow within my imagination, holding me captive with the possibility that the beauty of the mountain temples, and women who glide as if on carpets just might be true. If only, I had thought a thousand and three times, I had the courage to go and find out.
Courage is not an easy thing to find when one has a comfortable job for ten years with annual increases in pay leaving one at best mildly content. Mild contentment and courage do not go hand in hand.
The courage that I sought came to me the year my brother Andy died. A profound sadness left emptiness in my heart and within that opening, like a ship appearing out of the night, came a question. "What do you want?" A question so simple and yet the answers created a chain of events that led me here…Bali.
Many months after Andy's death, I was with my family vacationing in Disney World, Florida. After a morning of rides in a place called Asia, I saw a replica of an ancient Indonesian stone temple rising from the center of a small lake. I asked my sister-in-law, Amanda, who had lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, if that was an accurate replica of what she saw while there. Yes, she replied, and, whether it was exhaustion caused by the waves of intense heat or my brother's spirit, I decided to sit on a park bench in front of that temple to rest, while my family continued on. For three hours I sat thinking of all the adventures in my life that I still wanted to accomplish…and remembering how quickly this life can end. And, with it, all those dreams. Sitting there, I put together a plan, or a better description would be the plan revealed itself to me of how I would live a life that I loved and live it powerfully. It went like this. I would move out of my beautiful home with a pool and jacuzzi, give my furniture to my family, move into my friend's one extra bedroom with my two computers, my books, my clothes and my bed. Six months following, I would retire from my wine brokerage. I would then buy a ticket to Bali, to go find out why a place I had never seen had such a pull on me. I stayed there sitting on that bench for three hours until I had committed this fragile plan to memory. Once done I walked back to my hotel suite where my family of 17 would be taking their afternoon siestas, carrying my plan as one would gently carry a blooming lotus in the palm of my heart, hoping that it would not die before I had the time to give it water.
I sat down with my family while they were sitting around in one of our four suites and told them of my new plans. No one spoke a word until I finished with, "…and then I will go to Bali and create paintings which I will market here in the United States." They have known me long enough that when I say that something will happen I am undeterred until it does. Not a brother, or sister, or parent tried to move me from my path with warnings of starvation and depravation. The nieces and nephews continued to run and play while the uncles and aunts began to talk softly …"Mom, has he said anything to you"…"No, Margo, did you hear of this before?" "No, has anyone heard him say anything about this…?" My father alone chose to say nothing. He just looked at me with those eyes so sky blue… which I believe till this day were saying that his one and greatest wish was that his son should do whatever makes him happy.
Part of my plan was to spend the first part of my adventure with my brother-in-law, and his wife and nephew, Michael, Jacki and Nick, in the coastal town of Sanur, Bali. Leaving the comforts of America and going to their spacious home, with four bedrooms, two baths, a large outdoor kitchen and cool blue pool was not like leaving home. However, the following morning after my arrival, I walked outside the 12 foot compound wall and while standing in the dirt street I looked at water fields with lotus in which a white egret and one skinny Balinese cow grazed. Farther off, palm trees waved in the morning breeze… which at 7:00 AM was already reaching a heat so intense that nothing in my California memory could gage it. I stood there in my sleeveless shirt, already soaked in my own moisture, praying for the relative coolness of the hottest California day I have ever experienced, when from my right a young man entered the road from his house. He stood there for a moment looking at the sky and feeling a coolness in the air that I was obviously missing, he zipped his jacket to the top of his neck and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He greeted me, slamat pagi (good morning) as he started his trek to work, I thought. Not knowing what he said or how he could be feeling cool caused me to stare at him in envious wonder as he walked down the road.
Later, our neighbor to the left, Ketut Kadrah, came to ask us if it would be ok to build a modest pavilion for his nephew's small wedding. Where, we asked. Oh, in the street, of course. Sure, why not. How long? Not long, three days. OK. And how many people would be attending this small wedding? On, not many, only 500. Oh good.
There are three things that one is not to miss if one wishes to visit the heart of Bali with all its color and rich tradition. A tooth filling ceremony. A cremation. And, of course, a wedding… To be continued in the next newsletter.