good life

i woke up this morning to the quiet sound of falling rain. i love rainy days, but while on vacation in paradise, rain is a mixed blessing. today it would be a good thing, because my skin is crispy, painful, red and itchy from too much sun. rather than giving up on the beach, i decided to ride over to have breakfast. kopi bali and jaffle pisang was the thought, but just spending the time on the sand was what i was hungry for.

the day has been slipping by, and it's lunch time now. i just finished a wonderfully simple burger. it was served dutch style with mayonnaise, to which I added soya. empire meets local; or east meets west on the crossroads of trade. enjoying is all about finding the fusion. after this long in asia, i have given up on the idea that american burgers are the best way to eat. it's impossible to find them consistently, and using the local ingredients just make it taste better. i did skip the sambal sauce, there needs to be limits in life.

while sitting on the beach this morning, the third squall of the day passed. most of the other early beach-goers had abandoned hope during the second squall. it had lasted more than an hour, and prolonged tropical storms while sitting on the beach are just too much for most people. i waited it out because i had a feeling it was going to clear. at the first short break, i hopefully moved down to the chairs. minutes later the third gentle squall came through with another extended rain that brought visibility below VFR. i sat under an umbrella not made to protect anything from more than sun, and listened to the rain and surf. water dripped down my back, as i laid comfortably within the white noise cocoon.

as i walked back towards the cafe, i was coaxed into a visit to the beach-side massage hut. i amused myself by playing with a local kid whose mother was telling him to take a nap, while getting massaged by the aunties. it's hard to remember that they are my age. after 20+ years on the beach they look as though they have a generations head start on me. the beach community is a village of families who watch each other, we are just visitors to their lives.

it's when i experience others lives up close that i think about how blessed i am. i get to travel, but have people i love to keep in touch with while on the road. i never feel as though i am alone. my major fear 7 years ago. but while learning to enjoy being solitary, i also learned that out of sight does not need to be out of mind. distance does not need to limit connection; if you work on it. technology helps; sms, email, youtube and voice have all been used in the past few days to allow holidays around the world to be shared.

these are good days. the sun is out and the rain is losing its 60% chance of impacting beach time. i am drinking storm and i can feel the energy levels rising. it reminds me that i have been playing doom with a red light flashing; warning me to take cover. the trip feels like i have slipped into a quiet room, steel door protecting me from attacks, and i have found an energy pack to bring me back to health. just in time, because one more blast and i could have lost this level.

when ash was here this summer she told me that I was living large. she meant that expat housing, jockey parking, friends who own restaurants and the ability to slip away to the beach should be appreciated. sometimes i forget that, and i should apologize for my semi-occasional tantrums. i am not one of these 9 year olds, working on a beach selling bracelets and hoping for good luck to make a sale today. but sometimes, i do feel like the distracted kid being told to take a nap.

i get to have connected travel. i get to relax with my storm. i get to talk to the aunties, or strike up random conversations with nice strangers. i can go back to my hotel and take a hot shower, send my wet clothes to laundry, order a car for tomorrow's angel, and think about what i want for dinner. if i add in apple store purchases, and coming christmas presents, i know my bug is right. i am living large.

all I needed was a few days under a wet umbrella to realize:

this is the good life.

wishing you

i am at dinner in a local restaurant with a sign board that promises mexican food. it also has indonesian, italian, chinese and seafood listed, so i am not sure what to expect. the staff appears to speak english and russian equally well, not sure if this is a hint that mexican should not be the feast of choice, but then again, that is what this whole trip is all about, exploring.

i spent the day at the beach. hiding under the umbrella, reconsidering the need to add sunblock to my packing list for the beach. i wrapped myself in a sarong-tudong and wondered how I had gotten so far without SPF enhancement. the days of sunblock magically appearing are gone, time to take responsibility for my own skin.

as the day wound down a large crack of thunder in the distance got me headed back. already late, i took a few intentionally misguided turns and ended up in a small back-road village. the sales-kids on the beach had told me about a barong tonight. there was an old gentlemen in a crisp white outfit I have seen at temple festivals. i slowed and asked him if the barong was here. he shook his head no, and pointed around the corner.

there was a crowd of men loitering next to the temple. one was holding a rooster dripping blood from its legs. money was being passed back and forth between the men; somehow i had found the islands christmas night cockfight. i guessed this was a different form of cultural event, just not one in the guide books. given the theme of the week, i parked my motorcycle and tried to merge into the crowd.

that merge was not simple, my presence was clearly unexpected. it caused more than several looks, and a few whispered comments. this is where common sense kicks in for most. in a village that the 5-star hotel crowd never sees, my peers would neither get here nor intentionally stay. i tapped into my inner gonzo journalist and started talking to locals in a rough english-indonesian mix and did the polite thing by placing a bet.

the next contestants were both scrappy looking. liking it dark, i bet on the black cock with psychedelic green coloring on his sides. as they brought the birds together to snap at each other, i noticed the size of the white cocks claws, and knew i had made my first cock-fight mistake. there is some saying about big feet and winning cocks, but the action was ready to start and i needed to focus. i decided to let the contest play out; my bet more of like an entrance fee than a wager.

the "fight" lasted about three minutes. the white bird kicked my colored bird's ass. my guy left with a chunk of his neck missing, but alive and able to lose another day. i had visions of being deep in mexico while watching the combatants, they seemed more beach-asian, with a laid back surfer approach to fighting, than the gangsters they and the homies could be mistaken for. back on the road i knew there was a lesson to be learned, i still haven't figured it out. it will come to me.

it rained while i napped and showered. it was dry by the time i was ready for my christmas feast. i rode over to the place i had seen the day before and found it mostly empty; with a local guy playing christmas songs on his guitar. music to go along with my natal enchilada.

"feliz navidad" was interesting because he sang the english parts with a thick accent and the spanish memorized without accent. i was singing along so it was the second verse before I actually listened to him and heard:

i want to miss you a merry christmas. i want to miss you a merry christmas. i want to miss you a merry christmas, from the bottom of my hot.

i was sure he was doing it that way on purpose. it's the perfect end to this day. semi-yoga, cafe, beach, cockfight, motorcycle, sunburn, nasi goreng, madi-kutu in the afternoon and acceptable mexican food with bintang besar and a guitarist that mistranslates to improvement.

this is the best release ever; wish you were here.

happy holiday

i just paid USD 2.45 to drive my motorcycle onto one of my favorite beaches in the world and for an umbrella with two chairs to hide my burnt skin from the sun. i was met by smiles, "selamat pagi" and high fives as i walked to my chairs. i know the kids will swarm be again today, because i proved to be a good mark with the bracelet purchases yesterday. but i don't mind, it's part of the process of being remembered the next time i come to geger.

i woke up this morning and called family in the US. one call covered the kids, their cousins and my christmas purchase partner. I was able to send hugs to others opening presents in grandma's living room. my gift was hearing the fading sounds of christmas past. it was good to connect with a bit of holiday cheer. it's also important to remember where you came from.

i then called my mom and had a long conversation about moving forward when you just want to stop. she is missing my dad, but she got her rose today and has friends and family around her. we discussed afterlife on multiple levels, reminding me why i always loved the way she thinks; and how lucky i was for the conversations of my youth.

as I got to my umbrella I noticed clouds on the horizon. less than five minutes later it started to rain. big drops of tropical rain, shimmering against the blue sky just off the beach. the clouds look like they will pass off to the north, so i made a move to the sand-side cafe just before the rest of the beach caught on that the clouds behind them had malicious intent.

the tables around me are filled with other non-traditional christmas revelers. in front of me are the aussies with tattoo-surfer dad and happy mom who talked to me accidentally and then told me a joke about a wankers miscommunication in the men's room. to the side, a bit behind me actually, is a local transvestite who smiled at me shyly. she is with a P90X addict who seems to think no one has caught onto their ruse. the younger daughter from down under waited until they passed before asking mom if she was a he. more new friends on my favorite beach.

as i sit enjoying my morning storm, i am thinking about jk rowlings. i watched a profile on her this morning. not being particularly harry-fanatic i was not sure why i watched. the day was passing, and with it precious beach time. but the profile ended with a quote she delivered to a harvard graduating class.

the knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won...

the entire speech is titled "the fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination". when i read it, i found the paragraph immediately before this qoute was the real reason i was not able to leave the cafe on time this morning. some how, one of the jk out there was sending me a message. it was a message that i knew, but clearly i needed to hear:

failure gave me an inner security that i had never attained by passing examinations. failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned no other way. i discovered that i had a strong will, and more discipline than i had suspected; i also found out that i had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

the sun has come out and it's time to move back onto the sand. my storm is gone, and i have ignored the water for to long. i know that i now have the skills needed to see the rain before others and to get under cover before the crowds make a move. but i also know i can make friends in the strangest of places or moments.

even the happiest holidays can be in places you don't expect.

indonesian scrooge

what do you do when you realize for the second time in 4 months you need to break with convention and escape your responsibilities? the past few months have been difficult. i have been hanging in more or less one week at at time. but weeks ago i knew i needed to escape. i looked at flights to asia/oceania locations with the hope of mexican food and good beer. it took me three days to decide on my second choice, a process of whittling hope and fear down to action.

as an american in asia, i am constantly asked if i am going home for christmas. it's a strange question because i am not really sure where home is anymore. if home is where the heart is, my heart is spread over the world. i do not have a singular location to go where all the people i love will be sitting together as a unit of holiday joy. there are my american and european families, both of which i feel joining would be intrusion.

i have two groups who i love in KL. one is a mixed bag of non-christmas people; atheists, communists, muslims, sort-of-muslims, hindus and buddhists. there are a few christians mixed into this group, but walls limit the sharing of holidays. there is also a fully formed family group who will be celebrating praise and worship without me. this is an interesting ensemble that i enjoy being a member of; but i did what i have always done during holidays, pushed myself away from the table.

my parents allowed this to become a tradition of mine. i am not really sure why i am this way, but i am. when the holidays loom, i feel the need to back away. i love the christmas spirit, the trappings of the holiday, the food and buying presents for kids, but i feel very uncomfortable in the family setting. thinking about it, it's not being together that bothers me but the thought that i might not get to be with the family at the next holiday. echoes of divorce bounce in my head as i am visited by the ghost of holidays past. i love the memories, i cherish them, but i will never be invited to join in again.

if the ghosts of christmas past are haunting me, the ghost of christmas present has been a warm and loving soul. she and i discussed my separation, and agreed that i needed to get away. there is mass missed, dinner and singing to follow. there will be no tree to wake up to, there will be no stockings to stuff. my ghost of christmas present is allowing me to get away, to sit in a cafe serving bad coffee and pseudo-parisian pastries, to listen to spa-christmas fusion muzak and to write alone. having gained enlightenment about being holiday-solo, i am not upset by christmas present. but then ebenezer wasn't either until he realized family missed him; or was it their pity.

this leaves me with the ghost of christmas future. with birth parents gone, siblings 25 years separated and acquired family lost in agreement, i can not honestly imagine a future christmas like any of the past. i can imagine a time-share christmas, the exact thing that i have been avoiding for 4 years. having a tiny tree at home sounds good, but being away on the beach has become a bit of a tradition now also.

i realize that i am dangerously close to bringing my ghosts with me on my impaired holiday. in some ways, this year is a dry run, a phased approach of escape followed by reconnection. i honestly wish i were able to enjoy the holidays without the angst, but as i said i know this is who i am, and i appreciate that my parents, living and dead, my ghosts and my children understand that being here is not a way to say that i don't want to be there. i want to be there more than anything in the world.

the scared kid who cried the christmas eve he found out santa was a evil hoax, the young man who closed the door thinking of a camera, the husband horribly allergic to christmas cheer and the sun burned pirate are all looking forward to many happy holidays to come.

haunted duck will be served, god bless us all, every one.