thePlace

The door sprang opened, smelled of an abandoned house, a slight musky warm stench.  Agung flipped the switch on – the room seems empty and strangely dim.  It hasn’t changed in essentials, but shows and smells of desertedness.  Or perhaps I am just used to houses that filled with excesses and smelled of cleaning agents for the past two months.

 

After almost 2 days of journey (flying time totaled 18.5 hours, adding transit time at Taipei, airports waiting and car journeys) I’ve lost16 hours and fast forwarded to Bali, I’m home, back to the Place.  I called for Blackie when I stepped off the car.  Oh what a delight for both of us, and Jill too (he has returned, he got sick again when the owner took him) I spent 20 minutes snuggling up with one big brown dog and one small black dog -  dancing feet and wagging tails, licking, nibbling, scratching.  When I returned downstairs to give Agung his gifts, I smelled of dogs and dribbled with drools– to make up for lost time. 

 

Except for the strong-willed unwaveringly dim solar lamps scattered around the garden like an overgrown faraway constellation, it’s utterly dark out.  It rained briefly and I smell the quenched hot earth of the tropics – it’s the beginning of the monsoon.  I hang about the Place, establishing my presence or the smell of it, and in the same time, absorbing the world around me and in me.

 

I have been gone for 2 months.  Time rewinded and fast forwarded across the Pacific and the Atlantic and back again – the return to San Francisco, the invitation to Italy and Greece, meeting old and new friends, seeing new places, more eating than I could have done for the entire year in Bali.  The fact is after almost daily meals of fruits, vegetables and seaweeds in Bali, the rest of the world eats like fiends or so it seems.  So in 2 months, I have gained 10 lbs, overloaded my senses mindlessly – wine, champagne, weeds and tons of wonderful food in the best of the restaurants; all readily thrown upon me as invitations to become a honorary transient member of their worlds.  

 

In this short interlude from Bali, I have rediscovered my penchant for the fine things in life.  For a little while – I indulged to the brim and spilled over.   The fact that I would do all that only as a stopgap to the lean and simple way of living in Bali has somehow made me throw myself impetuously to the surroundings – to fully experience the excess and be sick of it.  Besides thinking of Blackie (especially when I passed a black dog) and occasional sms correspondences with a couple of people from Bali, I haven’t thought about the Place.  I have thrown the worries to the wind – I am good at it.

 

On the verge of returning, I almost had an urge to zoom right past the need of getting back, to keep on going, even if it were only in an elaborate set of circles, so that I can push the mindless self until she wore herself out or worked her way to a more natural end. I even tried changing the ticket – I didn’t packed till the very last minute and it seemed like an insurmountable task the day before leaving.   I did hang on to the responsible self – although only precariously; and now I am happily back to the simple life, to see my dogs, to feed the worms in the bin, to home grown fruits and vegetables diets – to cleanse myself and to loose the 10 lbs.

 

In all, I am thankful for everything that I have partaken. I am especially grateful to have met some beautiful people especially Marie Antoinetta, Antonio and Miriam.  Through their yoga center, I’ve rediscovered Aurobindo and the Mother.  I have bought over 100 books, mostly used cheap books from fund raising book fair and through the net.  I shipped 3 boxfuls to Bali for the library to be café I envision.  The post office said it will take 3-4 months slow boat across the ocean.

 

Ah, and I have accomplished something worthy while indulging.  I had the website done – after spending hundreds of hours pounding on the computer and figuring out how to work Dreamweaver, the website design program for laypeople like me.  It’s rewarding though tedious.  I kept revising it, editing, changing the words and photos I finally got so tired of it, I paid an Italian girl 25 Euro who didn’t speak or read English to upload it to the web knowing that they are not quite done. Yes, there are mistakes and I have yet to learn how to maintain a website. 

 

It’s official, the Place is now named SamyogaBali and everyone is welcome. 

 

Still imperfect but voila – here it is www.samyogabali.com.

I love the roaring Pacific Ocean, the smell of the open ocean, a medley of concentrated salt and wild wind, the determined snowy plovers with their robotic little legs chasing the waves frenzily, the gulls hovering like 2-leged winged helicopters…. The sight of the rolling high waves pounding the shore calms me infinitely, there is an intimacy that tugs me gently towards it - thoughts unthink, time stops, everything is just the way it should be.

I think of a smaller ocean, the Java/Bali Sea – except for a raging storm in the middle of monsoon, there are no pounding waves, only lapping whispering waves, a steady susurration. A small ocean I can’t get intimate with unless I am in it, a part of it – diving deep under pretending to be a sea creature in its womb. It is while partaking in the mystery down under, that a small ocean gives me another kind of intimacy that brings bliss.

This evening I walked passed a carcass of a dead sea lion or seal. No longer recognizable, head melted into the skin, maggot swarming – slowing devouring the brain. It was captivating. I thought of a human body.

The sun has moved across the sky casting the sky orange, sprinkles glittering silver on the unknowable surging swells. As it sinks slowly down the horizon, the lights drag out a singular golden dancing column traversing the darkening ocean. Another gleaming setting sun reflected and sparkles on the wet black silvery sand, tousled foam white and gray at the shore. The air grows colder, more damp. Low clouds spread from the horizon and curdled into little lumps spreading in. A few surfers reluctantly moving out of the water leaving the beloved to a next auspicious day.

For a short time, the open-roaring Pacific Ocean is no longer just a Memory 10 months out of 12; it has grown robust and alive – like a fruit in season, every season while I am passing through SF. I seek it out; my eyes are drawn to the foaming and raging Ocean whenever possible. So I walk the beach as often as I can – at times braving the cold howling wind with whipping sands, swirling fog and numbing drizzle. I walk on the soft sand – about 20 feet away, not on harder easier ground next to the foaming zigzagging line brought by the uninterrupted advancing and receding waves.

Soft sand feels good under the feet, a workout; and with this Beach, it is just the right distance to have a larger view of the Ocean.

The right distance for the heart to zoom with the thundering waves.

The right distance to take in the energy and return it undigested.

It must be this roaring Ocean with the foggy city that make people leave their hearts in SF. Imagine SF without the Open Ocean, no heart stays behind - a sacrilege indeed!