thePlace

Monroe has left. She journeyed 25 hours for a relaxing 2 weeks up on the hill of KP.  Besides spending 4 days in Ubud where we went to exquisite restaurants and she shopped, she rested at the Place. She basked in the warm sun and the soothing breeze and slept much, recuperated from the strain of setting up the perfect funeral commemoration for the passing of her 91 years old mom more than a month ago.  
 

It was good to have her for a while – a distraction much needed and a time to keep in touch with the outside world; a chance to take care of someone besides Blackie.  More importantly, these 2 weeks have given me the chance to see the Place anew.
 

 

Since the last entry on the blog, I have received some concerned emails worrying about my isolation in Bali, my decisions and the ‘problems’ in Kayu Putih. It’s my fault – it’s not as bad as it sounded in writing. Don’t get me wrong, there are still the unfinished buildings and tons of work to be done in the garden. Ah but listen, listen to the silence. The Place is now so quiet and peaceful, I guard it possessively.  I am tempted to keep it like this, no longer have the urge and urgency to finish the work or have more than myself living here. The splendor of the changeable sea, the variegated green below the horizon, and the vastness of the fathomless sky beyond seem exaggerated and more pronounced in the concentrated energy of silence.
 

I have talked to Made a couple of times and no bad feelings existed between us. He has no luck in getting the needed money to pay the workers – they still come around now and then to catch wind of the possibility of being paid.  Made spends most of his time in Denpasar, hiding from his creditors.
 

The weather is cooler now, a persistent breeze blows from the ocean. I swim almost daily in the evening amidst the scarlet sky while watching the sun fades behind the distant volcanic mountain of Java. My time here is never dull for I am never tired of gazing at the ever changing scene below the hill. There are good people around me – helping me when I needed it, bringing me gossips of the villagers of KP and the provincial city of Singaraja below. I have the best papayas and bananas from the garden – 100% organic.  I have wonderfully fresh salad from the garden.  I do go out once in a while  -  it’s always delightful when I have discovered yet another little delicious local eatery after tearing through the unpredictable streets of Buleleng behind Ferry’s small speedy motorbike at 95km/hr. When Awie and Agong come around they usually bring some new friends that like to have a tour of the Place.   And more often than not, their presence are accompanied with freshly caught ocean fish grilling on the custom made BBQ stove in the garden and yummy vegetarian dishes with all kinds of delectable sources and dips – tomatoes, sampal, onion and lemon, tempeh source, etc, all with the ubiquitous ingredient - chilly. 

Through my skin problem, I’m discovering and planting all sorts of tropical medicinal plants around the Place.  I enjoy the betel leaves and turmeric bath so much that I’m doing it as a daily ritual - I love the smell and cleansing of my skin without soap! I learn about harvesting those aromatic sweet smelling cloves around the garden.  I still have about 160 clove trees at the Place that might bring me a few hundred dollars.  I enjoy watching the villagers clamber up those straight slim bamboo sticks with tiny steps, precariously balancing themselves among the small branches plucking away.   

 

Besides doing my daily qi exercises and meditation, an hour of yoga whenever I feel like it, now I have a bunch of new books from SF, I have also encountered a new dimension of spirituality and am eager to read and learn as much on my own. I have also decided to learn to create a website – just because.   Since I have moved here I watch the handful of fishes that I purchased proliferated into hundreds of them, the lotuses, cattails and papyrus thrive happily in the ponds, the Place is almost entirely covered with green grass…. Most amazingly,  I notice insects and the awesome things that they do. Some visit the Place occasionally and some are permanent residence, sharing the Place – the spiders, the ants, the newly moved-in toads and frogs, the omnipresent swiftlets that sweep through the morning sky to visit me daily, the pigeons that whirl around the sky and whistle sharply with their individualized designed bamboo pendants that are recognizable by their owners, the dragonflies and butterflies that get stuck with the glass doors….
 

Indeed, I do have a lot to be grateful for. 

 

And for some reasons, money and income are the last things in my mind.