Cutting Teeth

For three of my last four weeks in Bali, I lived in the jungle, serving fruit platters to a group of Russian women doing a workshop on Tantra.

No, seriously.

Day 16 of my service at Jiwa Damai, and I'm drinking a steaming cup of SariWangi. The light is sliding in perfectly on top of my hand as I write, the occasional butterfly floats by the window to my right in a speckle of blue and black, and to my left--surrounded by a pile of seafoam green yoga pillows--are approximately 25 Russians lying on their backs, harnessing their 'divine feminine energy' through a collection of trance music that sounds like it came straight off of Buddha Lounge 4. I sip my tea in silence. What's that you say? That even by the standards of my travel saga, which has now extended to include a run-in with Tyra Banks and hearing Sara get called the 'female Enrique Inglesias,' this one is the wonkiest yet? I agree. How I get myself into these bizarre situations, I'll never know. I imagine there must be some sort of flashing neon arrow hovering above my head, visible only from the depths of the Universe, saying "PARK YOUR SPACESHIP HERE!" or "Eat at Joe's!" or something like that. It's a mystery. I do know, however, that since I've been in Bali, absurdity has flocked to me--and I to it--like ants to a jar of honey. I've been chased by a pack of Malaysian dogs and taught English in an abandoned auto shop, had my elbow healed by a guru and slept in a bamboo basket, and still made it home in time to watch a papier mache bull get burned in the street. Throw me a Rod Serling voiceover... because baby, I'm in the Twilight Zone. My recent stint with the Russians has only confirmed my suspicion that, in the land of travel, reality is far stranger than fiction.

Let me back up a little.

Beginnings are always tough. When I first arrived at Slukat, I was homesick and miserably hot. When I cleared my first rice field at FaaSai, I thought my arms would fall off. In Balian, surrounded by plethora of yoginis, it took a week before I felt I knew which end was up...regardless of whether or not everyone happened to be standing on their heads. This time around, with the clock ticking away exactly thirty days left on the island, I arrived at my final work spot: Jiwa Damai, an organic garden and retreat center in the boonies of Mambal. I say 'boonies,' because it took no less than 3 U-Turns for Yande to find his way here and drop me off--a fact that did not bode well for finding my way back to civilization, nor for my fear of Beginnings. I unloaded my bag into the thick midday heat, stepped onto the damp soil, and was immediately met with the sweet sound of... three massive, snarling dogs. "Don't worry!" someone called from behind me. "They'll only act like they want to kill you for the first couple days!" I turned around and was met by a beautiful Romanian girl, her hand outstretched to take my bag. I scanned her body for visible signs of dog maiming, but found none. My neck muscles relaxed a little. "You're just gonna love it here," she told me. "It's so peaceful." We proceeded to walk around the sprawling gardens, my feet crunching over spiky rambutan skins and slippery leaves. "This is the home of the Tree Spirit, and the Water Angel..." she said, gesturing to the lush foliage all around us. We stopped to take a photo of a spider that was bigger than my hand. "This is the mandala garden, the medicinal herb garden, and the nursery," she told me, "all established with permaculture principles in mind." As we walked around, I spotted bokchoy, basil, mint, turmeric, and ginger; rambutan, papaya, starfruit, banana, coconut, guava, and passionfruit; long bean, eggplant, tomato, chili, and tons of other veggies. "Almost all the meals are prepared using produce from the garden, and we cook exclusively with handmade virgin coconut oil, cold-pressed on site." My mouth started watering. "Of course, it can get kind of lonely here," she told me. "Speaking of which, this is my last day. I'll be leaving in a couple hours. But I really hope you have a great time." Psych! She dropped my bag and wandered back down the pathway. I opened the door to my room and walked along the cobblestone floor, flopping down on the tiny cot, which immediately jolted about an inch off the ground. I lifted the sheet. It was actually a lawn chair. With that, I lay down, let the sounds of the jungle press in against my ear, and watched the ceiling fan fling fling fling in tired circles above my head.

It occurred to me that my time thus far had been in preparation for this very moment. The piercing loneliness of my initial nights at Slukat, my first weekend alone in Ubud, spending the night on the bench at the Bangkok airport, the stillness of my loft in Balian: those were the minor leagues, loneliness that could be staved off by an email or a movie. But this: this was the Olympics of being alone. Not only was I alone on a lawn chair in the middle of the jungle, I was alone on a lawn chair with no WiFi and no computer and no ipod and no snacks and no one on the premises to talk to, other than the gecko threatening to poop on my suitcase. For four nights straight, after finishing dinner, I was back in my room by 7:30 p.m... nothing but the sound of my own pulse, the wildness outside, and my thoughts to entertain me. About half the time, this produced wonderful effects in my body and heart; I began to dig, really dig, for the resources I have within my own mind to keep from going totally insane. The other half, I thought about chocolate cake and played "Super Jewel Quest" on my dinky Indonesian phone. If you're wondering what "Super Jewel Quest" is, don't.

So I settled into life at Jiwa Damai, rising at 6:30 each morning for the first yoga session of the day, then spending most of my 'working hours' doing office tasks on the computer or weeding the Mandala garden; and by the end of the first week, I no longer felt uncomfortable. It was life outside my hidey-hole of yoga and meditation that began to wig me out. On my first trip back into Ubud, I was so overwhelmed at the prospect of refined sugar that I promptly ate an entire roll of Mentos. Bad news. The good news is I nipped my antisocial tendencies before I could become one of those freaky homeschooled kids who starts speaking in Dragon tongues at their first Co-ed dance; I understood that I was being given an incredible opportunity to be in solitude at Jiwa Damai, to let the past six months sink in, but that the realizations I was making were best when I could share them with others. I started teaching yoga in the mornings for Margret, the manager, and the new volunteer--a German named Sebastian. In doing so, I began to recognize the joy I find in not only deepening my own practice, but sharing that practice with others. Once I got over my (totally irrational) fear of mispronouncing the Sanskrit names for poses, or (even more irrational) fear of not appearing like Yoga Barbie, I realized that I love this--I love teaching yoga. I love the fusion of mind, body, and spirituality into a cohesive unit of self-improvement and humility. I love the routine that it gives me; the fact that we rise every morning at the same time, sweep the floor, and start the day by settling into our bodies. At a time when I feel like most things in my life are gaping with uncertainty, I crave the ritual of the practice--the discipline. It makes it just a little bit easier not to get caught up in the stupid things, the petty things, like when I tell myself that I'm not good enough. Or when I dwell too much on the future. Or when I eat an entire roll of Mentos.

Even better, of course, is the meditation practice that has come along for the ride. Before my travels, I was never one much for meditation. Sure, I loved how it sounded in principle; and when I pictured myself meditating, it was always in some sort of flowing, beautiful fabric, with a bunch of beautiful people gazing on, whispering softly to one another about how incredibly enlightened I looked. In reality, however, the times I had attempted a meditation practice usually became one long, mental battle: me versus the itch on my nose. Do I scratch the itch? No, let it pass! No seriously, though, can I scratch it? While I was in Balian, I had one significant experience on the beach, and was determined to continue mediating on the chakras when I got back to Ubud. But then I got back to Ubud, jumped on the back of a boy's motorbike, and that was that.

So I found myself at Jiwa Damai, nothing but me and the geckos, with a chance for a new start. It helped, of course, that Margret sat down at the same time every day; her presence on the pillow made me realize that just being there, just showing up, is about ninety percent of the effort. Discipline. So I join her at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., settling myself into a comfortable seat, holding my hands in front of my lower belly as she showed me to do, lowering my eyes to a forty-five degree angle. Sometimes, the brain dance begins. It's hilarious what comes up before the mind can settle into quietness; suddenly, you start thinking of the names of all your elementary school teachers. You remember that one time someone told you that Marilyn Manson had a rib removed so he could bend over to his own crotch, and wonder if it's true--then feel disgusted that this has entered your brain, this of all things, instead of something more poignant... like the lyrics to your favorite song. Songs. You wonder if they ever made a Boy Bands: Where are they Now? about Hanson. You think about lemongrass. What is your favorite song, anyhow? Best to play them on repeat until you can settle on one that has not yet been featured on an episode of Glee. 

But sometimes, out of nowhere, the brain drops out of the equation. I've found this place, now, and there's no turning back. No matter what happens each day, no matter where I feel I am at in my own life, I have the practice--and it brings me back to myself again and again. My self. Not the person in the multicolored tunic, listening to Ravi Shankar and eating kale. Me. I've learned to curl up inside that space, to let it hold me. Turns out, there are a bunch of questions swimming around in there; Margret encourages us to turn to our hearts for answers, so I gave it a shot. Not only that, I've found myself actually waiting for responses like a third grader with a Magic 8 ball. Hey, heart. Thanks for beating. Pause. What is it you want? To write. And to teach. Okay, so what exactly? What do you want to write, what do you want to teach? Fuck if I know.

So it's not perfect. But it's a start. The whole experience, the experience of sinking into stillness, has softened me; each moment is like the one when someone takes your hand for the first time, when you're all pins and needles and possibility, the heat between your palms lighting up with everything that will happen next. Every moment is new.

I tried explaining this to one of the Russians, but was met with the usual combination of terror and confusion... her wide-eyed expression clearly asking whether I would kindly stop chattering and plis geef her a reefeel of hahney, like she had requested. I obliged. For the past week or so, in stark contrast to the desert-island feel of my first days here, Jiwa Damai has been populated by a group of Russians doing a workshop on Mandala Dance and Tantra. The women, each one more beautiful than the last, are followers of a teacher named Maya... a lady with the most intense blue eyes I've ever seen. Before they arrived, Margret pointed this out in Maya's photograph. "You're going to have to be careful," she told me. "All this work we're doing with yoga and meditation--that's sending the energy one way. But in this workshop, they are going to be sending it the other way. Stay grounded." I watched them over the next few days, serving them tempe manis and working with Made in the kitchen--a REAL treat--but didn't feel anything 'vibrating in my lower chakras,' as Margret warned me I might. Margret, however, took to doing qi gong and kung fu in the kitchen whenever she felt her energy spiraling out of control. "Wah! Sheeeee.... hiiiyaa!" She sliced her hands through the air. I looked out at the women in their sharing circle, all in flowing skirts and 'diva pendants,' and resumed grating carrots. "You know what, Margret?" I glanced down. "I think it's physically impossible for me to be warped by a vortex of sexual energy as long as I am wearing these overalls." She laughed, and looked up at me. "You're all right, kid." And so it went. Spasiba.

The energy did affect me, though, in other ways. Beginning on my first night here and every night since, I have had the most bizarre assortment of dreams; dreams so real, so potent, that I spend a significant portion of the next morning wondering what actually came to pass. Some of them are relatively tame--a conversation in bird language, for example, with a starling flying above the beach--and others, not so much. I dreamed I punched a high school tormenter in the face. I dreamed that I gave birth to a baby that bubbled out of my stomach, Alien-style, before introducing herself in perfect English. Most interestingly, I've dreamed--over and over again--of chipping my front teeth off, leaving snowflake-like cutouts in what remains in my mouth. "These dreams are from past lives," Margret told me. "The energy is velvety here. It's why we don't have WiFi." I looked it up, and found out that dreams about teeth have something to do with growing up; with the shedding of the old, and the tedious--often painful--growing in of the new.

This thought stayed with me as I hit an interesting rough patch. As it turns out, someone very close to me has been telling her friends--and mine--that I am self-absorbed. When I first heard this, my reaction was predictable; I wanted to go into total denial, like a kid who has been called a 'weenie' by the school bully, only to squeal 'AM NOT!' before taking a kickball to the face. I wanted to har-UMPH into being offended and write the whole thing off... but then, out of nowhere, I didn't. Sitting in meditation, I let the thought wash over me. What does it mean, anyhow, to be self-absorbed? I pictured myself as a liquid, oozing into my pores, sucking into my own skin like water into sand. Instead of turning away from what was making me uncomfortable, I decided to grab it by the cheeks. What if she's right? Maybe I am self-absorbed. I thought about all the blog posts here, all the backing-and-forthing that this trip has been about, all the moments I've been concerned about my own journey. Then I realized what a fucking RELIEF that has been. I've spent so much of the past few years absorbed in someone else--in a boyfriend--that to be absorbed in myself felt like a welcome, necessary change. Ironically, I've never spent more time thinking about something bigger than myself; most often these days, when I'm not pretending to speak Russian, I'm thinking about God. In terms of feeling 'good about myself,' I'm not sure I've ever felt more cracked open; physically, I feel like an gross, unshowered mess. For every moment I feel that way, though, I've been trying to engage in what Pema Chodron calls 'loss and defeat to myself, victory to others.' For every moment that I feel like a goon in overalls, I look out at the group of Russians: each one of them here to work on themselves, going deep into their souls, and emerging as beeyooteeful buttehrflays. I told Julie what I had been thinking about, and she took my hand in hers. "It's the same with my family," she told me. "I'm focusing on myself for the first time, and they think I don't care about them. But this time is about you. It's about focusing on yourself so you can be better for others." That, and serving coconut milk curry in perfectly proportioned plates to a group of Russians, doing dishes for 2 hours, and dreaming of cutting teeth.

So like a baby, I am teething. I survived the Aloneness Olympics, and am learning to be a servant of something higher--something that dings faintly of truth--instead of getting derailed by every habitual reaction. I'm learning. It's challenging at first, but I hear it gets better.

What has been hilarious about the past couple weeks, other than the constant mental dialogue of this is my brain not on sugar. This is my brain on meditation. This is my brain without caffeine, has been the assortment of language barriers. I'll be in the kitchen dicing garlic and shallots for sambal, listening to Made and Komang chit chat in Balinese, occasionally attempting to throw them a word or two in Indonesian, and then take the whole mishmash outside to explain something in English to a bunch of people who only speak Russian. Communication is a funny thing. Somehow though, within all these language doodles, I managed to piggyback onto a taxi heading into Ubud so I could have a dental guard made at the clinic in Sayan. Waiting into the pristine office, the floors and ceiling gleaming with hygiene, I felt once again that I had wandered into a dream. When I was called in to sit in the dentist's chair, I leaned back and felt a gloved hand run along the undersides of my front teeth. "These teeth are really jagged," she told me. "Do you want me to file them for you?" Sure, I replied--then tilted my head back into the ferocious lamplight as she inserted a spacer into my mouth. Inside, I couldn't help but laugh. In Balinese culture, one of the most significant rites of passage is a teeth-filing ceremony, where an adolescent (or adult, depending on when they can afford the procedure) has their canines filed away in order to represent the transition from animal to person, away from the six human evils. I wondered, then, what evils I was moving away from; what was being ground to a powder, so fine that I may never have to worry about it again?

I'm growing up, I think. I think that's what this feels like. I think that's all.

I stared up at the dentist and attempted to make words. "Tho, doth thith mean I'm Balinethe now?" My tongue flopped around, and she looked at me. "No," she said, and snapped her protective goggles into place. The drill began to whir. "Close your eyes, now. This will only hurt a little." And she was right. It only hurt a little.

It deserves to be mentioned that two days later, after picking up my brand-new nightguard, I was so excited that I tried it on right then and there... only to have it get stuck to my teeth. When I finally managed to pry it off, turning my head away from the gorgeous, totally presentable Balinese receptionist, it came flinging out of my mouth with a disgusting SHLUUUURRRK and flew across the floor to the feet of a man reading a pamphlet. "Sorry," I muttered, and hightailed back to the car. On the way home, I wondered again how I manage to get myself into these scenarios. I wondered if my nightguard would affect my dreams about teeth, if perhaps I'd stop grinding them, and whether anyone would believe me when I told them about my faux pas at the clinic. Most likely, they'd continue to stare at me like I'm crazy and resume their conversation in Russian, absorb back into themselves and their jungle fruit, and leave me to wonder about the line between reality and fiction.

Then again...it's not so hard to tell. Like I said before, some things are just too strange not to be true.