thePlace

I have moved – at 13 hour February 8. It was a perfect day, the bluest and driest day since returning to Bali last November. The date and time were picked by Pak Sri, the paranormal I met at Titik’s house. The foretelling of such precision is hard to ignore – I rushed to reach the House with a borrowed car loaded to the brim – I was late by 10 minutes. Ayu and her entourage prepared all the necessary offerings. They lead me around, uttered prayers and asked permissions for the move-in from various spirits and gods. I murmured my gratitude to mother earth, the trees and everything that makes the Place livable for all.

The House is finally done now – almost 3 weeks after moving in. I have decided to pull up stakes, moved in to see it completed. I have to take charge or the House will remain in the twilight zone of an ongoing state of uncompletedness. The mysterious leaky pipes and pool, the bleeding wall, flooded gutters, the spraying alang-alang roof, the failed water pump, the unworkable water heater…. I was stuck in a time warp, trapped in a fury of righting the wrongs. It was a blur of chaos - I had neither the time to sink my roots nor think of anything else. I lived through the past 3 weeks as bravely and as patiently. No time to whine and swaddle in self-pity. It didn’t matter that I have paid the contractor to take care of everything – in Bali there’s no where to file a complaint. I have heard - the first time most of the payment goes to learning money

Frustration at the paltriness of words prevented me from writing. More than once I broke into tears in sheer helplessness – I felt utterly alone. Blackie was my only solace.

Ah, but how different I feel now. It’s magical to watch the sea dances with the sky while listening to the sound of the running water on the two huge rocks into the bath pond behind the wall. All the frustrations that I have gone through have long been evaporated into the Space. I am thankful for all the tribulations – for through them I have met great people. Wayan, the painter who ‘coincidentally’ painting the 5 Balinese Angels that bring me mindfulness, compassion, beauty, simplicity and adventure – stuff I seek in life. Wayan’s 2 former students are painting the view at the end of the steps. Ahwei, he has all the solutions and makes all the construction problems seem trivial. Titik, someone I can always count on and through her, I’m now teaching a class in a language school….

Tonight – the air is unruffled. The body, exhausted from a day of gardening (there still so much to do), the mind eager. I watch the sky fades into darkness against bright red sky with the silhouette of mountain peaks in Java across the sea. Sitting on the Javanese Bale on my veranda perched high on a hill, I’m suspended in space, the Bali Sea, villages and Singaraja span below me. Unhurriedly, the sea merges into the sky, the surrounding hills withdraw into its resoluteness; my body dissolves into the space under the vigil of distant lights.

There’s no point trying to etch into this journal the gratitude I feel, to convey the sense of belong that floods through my being…. I am here, like these rocks and sky and sea, we just are. There’s nothing to do.