Lover's Quarrel

Over the months, it has become clear that Bali may very well be the love of my life. Maybe most girls dream of Russell Crowe in a Polo shirt, with Ryan Gosling's body and Liam Neeson's voice, standing outside Ione Skye's window with "In Your Eyes" blasting out of the boombox on their shoulder--or maybe they, like me, have fallen for geography and made love to a map. Their lust is sandwiched onto 'wander,' and their idea of a sexy evening is being alone in a bed that doesn't happen to be covered in gecko poo. Thinking this way, I've had two major lovers in my life: both emerald green islands, both in countries that begin with "I," both loyal to a way of life where buses are more likely to materialize out of thin air than show up at the scheduled hour. But if Ireland was the boyfriend who froze my socks and taught me how to take myself less seriously, the 'fling' with the tongue piercing that every dad dreads and every girl has to take to prom at least once in her life, Bali is the one that shows up for family dinner wearing a tie (probably batik) and holds my hand in public. In the evenings, it kisses my cheeks with sunsets of red, pink, and bluey-gold. Its soil is solid enough to sink my heels into, but not so firm that it bites my knees when I fall. It is at once a reliable friend, providing meaningful work and a reason to stay focused, and also deliciously unpredictable--exciting, deeply spiritual, and hot as hell. It's the whole package. Romance, it would seem, is a ricefield.

But every relationship has its ups and downs.

This second time around, life at Slukat has been very different... and I've loved it. That's not to say I didn't love it back in October, when the focus was on my fellow volunteers and our weekend excursions around the island; however, this time around, I've been folded into village life in a way that feels like chicken soup for the soul. Spicy soto ayam, to be exact, with a side of pisang keju and a steaming cup of Bali kopi--all for the low low price of forty cents! Village life in Bali is a miracle unto itself. Over the past month, my fellow teachers and I have spent less and less time venturing outside of Keramas, and more and more time taking sunset swims at Cucukan, ordering off Kadek's secret menu at Warung Legong, and visiting homes in the evenings. Seamus and Tomi spearheaded nighttime futsal sessions, and dinner wasn't dinner unless we could eat it with our hands. At a certain point, I realized all the things that used to make me want to leave Slukat on the weekends--sporadic water and electricity, grimy plates and swarms of bugs, the sticky smell of brick-making--were the same things that kept me here this time around. Sure, I was pimply and gross. But it was my gross, and it felt like home.

So I settled into a new-old routine, a life of lesson planning and weak Nescafe, and something in me felt invincible. Then, as is usually the case, the travel gods sensed my overconfidence and decided to put it to the test; if Bali is my romance, then the past 3 weeks have given us our first batch of lover's quarrel. The more I think about it, the more it seems this is just an inevitable aspect of travel: right when you're starting to get cocky, to give yourself more street cred than perhaps you're due, the light changes. The airline loses your luggage. The foreign land, if it knows what's good for you, wipes that smug smile off your face with a flat tire or stolen wallet, or by bringing you diced fish heads when you thought you were ordering oatmeal. I don't mean to undermine how much it sucks when any of the above happens... I only mean to say that it can serve as a cosmic signal that it's time for a reality check. Or, as Ketut Arsana told me when I was hit by the motorbike in October, to "wake up already."

This time around, it started with a little animal. All I can say is that this nighttime visitor to our room was annoying, certainly... but a deal breaker? Hardly. It was a test of my ability to coexist with Bali critters, but at the end of Round One, I was still in the victor's corner.

Ding ding ding!  Round Two: a weekend in the north. After a long week of stagnant heat and watching Peter and Jo surrender to salmonella, I was invited to escape and visit Indira's awesome school in Bedugul. I'd already been to Bedugul, so weather-wise, you'd think I would have known what to expect: the first time, Orin and I perched in a tiny shop for nearly two hours before we realized the torrential downpour was not going to let up. We bought two sets of (wonderfully dorky) waterproof gear and a fleece blanket, suited up over our existing rain jackets, and ventured forth into the daggery rain. Somehow though, this memory registered as "bring thin sweater and poncho and you'll be fine"... which, obviously, I wasn't. Seamus and I arrived at the school in the middle of a grey afternoon, and proceeded to teach a classroom full of kids--all wearing long sleeves and pants, because unlike me, they are not demented--underneath a ceiling that was practically tiedyed from different colors of mold. Standing in a puddle of freezing water, we taught about giving directions, and I tried to remember my will to live. I found it again when we took the motorbike out on an adventure--off-roading through all the beautiful, muddy, twisty-turny pathways that snake up the mountains surrounding Lake Beratan--but lost it when we returned to the school at night, damp and starving, and realized we had 3 blankets for 5 people. I ate a pile of cold rice with tempe, wrapped my damp clothing around the ice blocks that had replaced my feet, wished desperately for soap and/or a flush toilet, and lay in a room that boasted the same impressive patterns of mold that the classroom had. My nose ran and I listened to Ray Lamontagne, counting my blessings that at least I wasn't in the room next door where the boys were having a farting competition, and cried. It was a beautiful night, in its own dismal way. When morning came, Seamus and I rode into Munduk in search of the waterfall: worth seeing, no doubt about it, in all its misty and majestic glory. Immediately afterward, however, we got trapped in the biggest rainstorm yet--and until the rapids died down, huddled inside a tent on the side of the pathway, playing games that families force upon their children during horrendously long roadtrips in order to distract them from the fact that they're not going anywhere for a long time. When we finally made it out, we still had upwards of 3 hours to spend on the road. The rain pelted my face raw, and I thought my feet would never regain feeling... but as soon as we got back to Keramas, the uncomfortable aspects of the weekend had already given way to the positive ones: tiny Bedugul strawberries at the market, the smiles of the children as we danced around the room, the long clouds over the mountains. Apart from catching a cold from the soupy air, Round Two was over and I was still smiling.

And then... Round Three arrived. Ding ding ding! The following weekend, on the heels of Tomi, Seamus, Indira, and a few other Slukat alumni, the girls and I decided to head to Lombok and the Gili Islands. Even before coming to Bali, I was told the Gilis were not to be missed... so we bought our tickets, local style, for the slow ferry. Orin had already 'joked' about the fact that, after riding a chicken boat across the Lombok Strait, his parents were so relieved to be back on Bali soil that they got married and stayed for forty years; and for the first couple hours, that anecdote managed to retain its humor. Four hours in, however--amid piles of rotting fruit and cigarettes, next to a woman with hairplugs and mysterious, angry red boils peppering her exposed chest--I found myself wondering what was so funny about it. Once we arrived on Gili Meno, of course, everything was bliss. We met Seamus on the beach and spent two days (with a brief interlude to drink Bintang and eat street tacos on the party island of Gili Trawangan) floating in the crystal-clear water, sitting on the beach, and dreaming in the hammocks dotting the perfect sand. Gili Meno is so peaceful that we were actually chided on our first night for speaking above a whisper. Naturally, I was horrifically sunburnt from the ferry ride. I also spent a good portion of time fuming at the fact that we had already purchased return tickets on the slow boat, when Seamus--along with everyone else--had gotten a great deal on the fast boat home. Looking at our surroundings, though, it was impossible to be unhappy for long. We lounged in the water, played music on the beach with the locals, and slept under the most spectacular stars I've seen since California. BUT. Then--oh, but then--we woke up on Monday morning to return to Slukat. Walking to meet our first boat, I felt something unusual churning in my stomach, but tried to nip it in the bud with a soda water. Then, on the sea, it became very clear that I was sicker than I'd ever been in my life. The only option, the only thing that felt like anything less than hell, was to put my head down with my eyes closed. Unfortunately, with nearly 10 hours of public transportation left to endure that day, sleeping wasn't an option; and one hour later, as we bobbled along in a horse-drawn cart to meet our next bus in Bangsal, I began vomiting profusely. Believe me, "STOP THE HORSE--I'M GONNA HURL!" was not something I expected to say on this trip, but there you have it. Now, in order to capture the humor of what happened next, I'd like you to imagine a chorus of seals barking out melodies as a circus theme plays in the background: "Ladies and Gentleman, the one, the only, Transportation from Hell! Watch as the sick girl crawls into a van that--voila--magically has no floor or working windows! Now watch as we cram not six, not seven, but twelve human beings into seats designed for five! Now watch as the driver makes one dozen stops along the nauseatingly serpentine road for personal errands, forcing each of his passengers to spend two and a half hours panicking that they will be late for the ferry! BUT WAIT--what's that, you say? The ferry has no running water or toilet paper? That the toilet is a hole in the floor? How bizarre! Now watch, ladies and gentleman, as the girl with the green face curls into the fetal position for five hours and contemplates death on the slow ferry to Padangbai. For a special closing feature, we'll have you watch as she stands outside the lavatory for twenty minutes, trembling in agony, as the locals laugh hysterically at the white girl with the green face! How bizarre! Ladies and gentlemen, gather round, gather round..."

Then my ipod and laptop both died within a week of one another.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

I have to say, Round Three nearly took the fight out of me. From the gauzy distance that time allows, it's all pretty funny in retrospect... I mean, come ON. I puked out of the side of a horse cart. Plus, I knew I had jinxed the situation when I told Seamus (in between bites of street-cart terang bulan, also known as fried dough covered with margarine, cheese, and chocolate jimmies) that Asia hadn't gotten the better of my stomach. Still, there were moments on that damn ferry ride where I wondered if my relationship with Bali would be able to weather this rough patch. How much couple's counseling would we need, exactly, before we'd be able to sleep in the same room again?

Unlike relationships with, you know, real people, a love affair with a place doesn't allow for the silent treatment. You don't get to sleep in a separate bed, because that bed is still in Bali, on Bali's turf, on Bali's terms. Once I survived my sickness, and survive I did, I got to thinking about the lesson to be gleaned from all of this: the difference between healing emotionally and physically. Even in the moments when my body was pushed to its absolute limit, there was still a voice in my head telling me that it was all going to be over--in twenty-four hours time, it wasn't going to be as bad. I could sleep and it would heal, like a cut, overnight. That's the thing about corporal pain: it has a time stamp. Emotional pain, on the other hand, bears no such promise; broken hearts rarely shut up, even in sleep. But what if we can trick our brains into thinking that there IS an endpoint, even if there's not? If someone tells us to 'take two aspirin and call them in the morning,' will the fear shrink along with the imaginary swelling? When the muscle memory of a heartbreak comes up, I usually stay away... I have no idea how long it's going to take up residence in my brain, so I don't allow myself to see it. However, when it comes down to it, looking straight at it--allowing it to pass through, purge, like a stomach bug--is what forces it to leave. Like Michael Singer says, it's going to hurt... "it was stored with pain; it is going to release with pain." But it only hurts for a minute, and then it's over. When your body tells you to vomit, you don't have a lot of time to think about it--it's the only thing that will make you feel better, so you do it. Same with sadness. If you give it its due, lying face down in bed because you've convinced yourself that it will be better as soon as you puke it out, it will be.

The week after Gili, I went into Ubud for Kirtan. Sitting on the back of my friend's motorbike, I felt the fresh air rush in off the rice fields as we made our way into Sayan... and, doing my best impression of a normal person (and not one who may blow chunks at any moment), told him about my recent troubles with Bali. "Too much L.A.," he told me. What? "Every time person get too much L.A. attitude, get sick. Many come to Bali and stay only in Ubud, yoga, leave before sick... leave when feel sick, because of sick.

"If you stay through, it is where it is beauty. Bali doesn't care if you surrender to Bali. Bali cares if you surrender to YOU. If you not surrender, too much L.A., you get sick. Even me. That is Bali tell you to let go."

So there you have it.

As we pulled into the driveway of a beautiful home, filled with beautiful people, I smiled. I came to Bali with an ipod, camera, and laptop, and now I've lost all three. On the bright side, I can now get my hair into a ponytail! Bali is keeping me grateful for what I've got. People have come into my experience and evaporated again like ghosts, and I've loved them all the same. The best part is, I've found my place in Bali; Keramas, the village, where I feel like a fish out of water and insanely comfortable all at the same time. Each time I think I've found Bali, it throws me a curveball--it shows me that there is something else to be seen, a deeper layer to peel open, and another reason to surrender to myself and the unknown. Sweet, sweet surrender.

Taking that with me, I entered gingerly back into the world of solid food... humbled by my spat with Bali, but not willing to call it quits, and no less willing to help Tomi and Seamus kill a chicken and then use the same bloodied penknife to slice vegetables for the cap cay. It will take more than a few stomach shenanigans to come between me and my village. I still eat the lawar, and take shots of arak--which has been soaking in the 'medicinal properties' of Chinese root and a mysterious animal fetus for upwards of ten years--from Pak Man, because he pats his bicep and tells me it will make me 'strong.' I still say yes to what I'm given. I just pass on the fried intestines.