October, 2014
Padangbai, Bali, Indonesia
It is so simple and beautiful where I am in the middle of a banana & coconut tree field. Roosters crowing, cows mooing, dogs barking… the slowness of rural village life. Nothing to do.
Quite shocking. But somehow, I just love it. Sure, I am connected by occasional internet, cell phone, and my iPad, but even that feels like a contradiction. Because I am living in between 2 cultures, 2 different ways of life. No tourists where I am when I am here, yet I am bringing tourists here with Airbnb. Am I a cultural criminal, bringing modernity to the 3rd world? Am I “corrupting” the backwater simplicity?
We are all so busy with our lives in LA, in New York, in any of our metropolises in our Western worlds . So many things to DO, to produce, to create… to pay the rent, to satisfy our selves, our souls. Yet here I am, satisfyingly and peacefully alone, wife off with our dancer friend, Jimbo, to see the arts & culture in Ubud, where they have communal cremation ceremonies, ritual “kechak” monkey chants on the beach, graceful “barong” ballets, magical “wayang kulit” shadow puppet story telling performances all night night long…. the sense of time, so different from Western culture.
Try to get something done, make plans, build something…. there will always be a 3 day holiday here where no one works. Always. I feel like an unknowing, impotent Gulliver. Yet things always get done. But always on Bali time, not my own. There is nothing to do but to surrender. To let go. To become part of it all.
Being “semi-retired” is a much longed for, yet unsettling condition, trying to let go of a 28 year pattern of life that has supported me so comfortably. How will I manage with a new paradigm?
But time? I do have it now. Although academia always did provide plenty of it in between semesters. Soon there will be no more “in betweens”, only the now. Frightenly beautiful, don’tcha know?
I look out towards the horizon and see green, green, banana leaves jutting just beyond the crystal clear, turquoise blue pool water, majestic coconut trees standing regally beyond. I know I’m in a good place and wonder how I got here….
Love from the Equator, or Far East Covina, near Padangbai, Bali, Indonesia
Tru-les (what they all me here)
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