Breakfast in Bali and the Rocking-Pig…

A lotus blooms in the garden...

I am here.

In fact, I have been for a good couple weeks now.  Time is warping in the tropical heat, and working its magic.  It is a rubber band unloosed… once tight, now freed.  Slinging, ebbing, flowing… life is coming now in lovely turns and weaves.  There is a flow in being overseas, especailly newly so, that is wonderful — like wearing special glasses and seeing magic.   My soul is eating it up — just hopelessly in love with the world’s variety.

Just under a month into my pleasant, new tropical chapter, the chaff of my old life is gone.  It has been creatively, and decisively destroyed.  With the wreckage now cleared, the slate feels clean.  The sun feels warm.  The birds sing to me.  The cold beer tastes extra good.

For all of the hard work it took to get me here, in breaking through the norms around me that needed to be broken, prepping for this trip was a decidedly solo affair.  Walking a trail that no one else around me was, I headed into the unknown with no company, just a flashlight, a knife and a dream.  But here, my story is echoed en masse, one of an untold many.  Every expat I meet here tells their own tale of passage — of letting go and allowing their world to shift gears and continents.  After the intensely solo prep, it is so odd to suddeny arrive somewhere where ‘everyone understands,’ and in that, coming here feels like a cosmic homecoming.  The people, the travelers, and adventurers, have simply been out here in the world traveling and adventuring.  That lingering idea that I’ve gone off the deep end has been suddenly put to rest, as I realize, wow, theres a bumping lot of good people here, having a kick-ass pool party in the deep end.  Call me crazy, but I think I’ll have a swim!  ( Ha. Ironically, back here in the real world, I passed on a swim in a gorgeous nearby color-changing, beach-front pool with friends to sit here and write. )

Please don’t get me wrong.  In all of my excitement and discovery, I am not trying to check out of all of the awesome family, friends, opportunities, and places that I’m temporarily physically removed from.  These are the things, and you the people, I’ve chosen to bring along for the ride.  So ride we shall, for a curious soul I am.

I can not stand in front of the Wizard of Oz, without wanting to peek behind the curtain.  And I *want to* stand in front of the Wizard of Oz.  I have scurried scared and shitless as the flying monkeys came, dug deep for the courage of a lion, the heart of a tin man and the brains of a scarecrow — haven’t we all, in our own way?  Well, I, for one, damn well want to feel the heat, shit my pants and tremble in awe as The Wizard makes his demands.  And then I want to pull back the curtain and meet the man who made it happen, pull the levers myself, and learn to fly that intense and awesome show.  This jaunt here to Bali, is just part of my learning to fly.  It is practice for the kind of life I want to live — with eyes, mind and spirit absolutely wide open.

Kickin' it with the rocking pig...

I ate breakfast next to a rocking-pig this morning, sitting on ancient teak chair in a garden of understated splendor.  It must have been built for a child sumo for it is stout and solid, tree-trunk craftsmanship, and cheeky as all getout.  Upon this pig how many babes have ridden?  Eyes full of wonder — not at the thought of saddling up on a wild wooden pig — but at being tossed too and fro; thrown off balance, hackles up, and just out of control, over and over again.  Do it again!  Do it again!  Do it again!  That deep yearning — set free.

How am I doing, you ask?

I am mid-ride and airbound on an ageless pig, laughing, in timeless infinty.

It is good to be building a life again, rather than taking one apart.

Love,

HM