Monday, April 7, 2008

bittersweet

the day is here...
the last day of our trip (pretty much, though we still have 4 days in los angeles)
but it is the last full day of being so far away, and of being out of the USA.

i don't really know what to say.  there is so much to share; i feel like i've been a bad blogger here in bali, not really writing a whole lot about our experience, but little snippits instead. it feels like we are leaving a home.  bali (ubud in particular) is so special because travelers come here and stay for a *while*.  like pai in thailand, where people come for two days and stay a week (or 6 weeks, like we did), but even more so here.  people come here for a month and stay for three, and on and on, and then they come back the next year, and the next.  so there's a rich community here, both within the beautiful balinese people and the web of travelers and clothes designers and belt designers and jewelry designers and other artists that make this their second home.  and so, the friends we've made here are people who we've spent most of the days of our time here with, in large and small amounts, and they all feel like friends we've had for much longer.  the ninth house is also the place we've stayed longest on our trip; i wrote down all the beds we've slept in on our whole trip, and the ninth house is #50!  it also feels like our home; our room, the yoga space, margot and jesse (who left today!) and all the people who live there and help out to keep it such a nice space.  last night we had a potluck/dinner there with about thirty people who are friends of margot and jesse and us.  we bought 10 vegetable curries, 10 vegetable lawars, 3 chicken perlalas and 3 large salads from lala and lily's, one of our favorite restaurants where wayan and ibu, the women who work there, are just perhaps the sweetest women we've ever met (another na's kitchen experience, for bali this time).  carson, jesse and i carried all the food back on our motorbikes and had a feast with our friends at home. 

two days ago we finally pulled ourselves away from the ubud bubble and took a day trip down to padangbai to go snorkeling at the 'blue lagoon.'  at first the drive on the motorbike was overwhelming, but it evened out after a while.  (jesse jokes that we should make a video game of driving a motorbike in bali, having to dodge the dogs sleeping in the middle of the road or trying to chase you, random potholes, piles of rock or sand dumped on the side of the road, parked cars, billowing clouds of black exhaust from trucks passing, vans passing you so close you almost run off the side of the road, other motorbikes, rain pelting you in the face, the sun beating down, quick turns, etc.)  we saw countless durians on the drive, and ate two (fantastic!) and did some of the best snorkeling we've ever done in the lagoon.  really, i've never seen such diverse, colorful and healthy coral as i saw there, and fish of every color.  carson and i took turns with the snorkle set that jeromi gave us, and after we were done we gave it to a group of balinese kids that were so excited to have it to look down through the water they were swimming in.  it's so incredible how just that little snorkle set can open up a whole new world.

we've been attending potlucks to say good bye to other friends...learning more intricate and delicious ways to make raw chocolate out of fresh cacao beans...dodging dogs in the middle of the night... waking up for the sunrise...drinking turmeric juice with jessa susie and timshel and taking pictures of our yellow tongues... visiting the antonio blanco art gallery and getting pictures taken with macaws and cockatoos on our shoulders... hiding out in the rain storms (and driving in the rain when we can't escape it)... eating papaya and black sticky rice for breakfast... trying to find a new environmental school with the directions of "go right, then left, then right, then left" to no avail but seeing a little more of the country side instead...taking pictures of the terraced rice fields and flower offerings and sculptures at our house to show you when we get home...savoring the green views....watching the rice fields transform from green stalks to being full of seeds to being cut and harvested to drying on the side of the road (or in the middle of the road in some cases! :) ...taking a poi spinning class with a great teacher named nick woosley...eating a 15 dish balinese buffet at ketut's place with chloe and liam and three other new friends...eating warm fresh baked blueberry muffins from bali buddha...  tonight we finally go to the kecak dance (didn't work out the other day) with katie and jessa, and then dinner at the orange warung, and then home to pack up. 

i feel ready to come home, and also not.  i feel surprisingly neutral about it actually!  just like, wow, the day is here!  it's been so long, and i bet as soon as we land and see the space needle it will feel like it was all a dream.  of course, i am excited to see my family and carson's family and my dog and friends.  it will be comforting to be home around all things familiar and comfortable and home-like.  it's also feeling bittersweet today to be leaving, all of these new friends we've made here (who are also all leaving in the next few weeks too), and this culture, the smiles, the rice fields, the flowers, the art, the land.  it's not my 'home' but it's one of them.  for me, traveling has definitely helped expand my homes, the places that i know, that i have connection to and experience with.  i am wondering how the US will feel to me, having been gone for so long (having been gone at all, this being my first International trip!)  getting back into the world of news, and elections, and the troubled economy, and the making-money-world versus spending-money-world that we've been in for so long.  i'm excited to be in a place where you don't have to worry about mosquitos (some of the ones in bali carry dengue fever) or catching some horrible sickness (several people have been getting typhoid fever here, including one of our good friends).  i'm looking forward to cooking more food, going to farmer's markets, and spending some good quality time with the people i love!  i feel ready to settle for a while again.  bali itself has also been a place of settling, here in ubud....we traveled for so long so far, it's been nice to be cozy here in a nurturing little nest and not venture far from it.  carson and i have made lists of all the things we want to explore when we get home, like studying spanish, working on a farm and creating a garden at my parents' house, playing music together and learning new instruments, riding bikes, hiking a lot in the woods, growing wheatgrass, making "man bags" (that's his :) and other various things that sound like fun.  i think a challenge and a treat will be to continue the journey, the adventurous spirit, the exploration and newness when we get home, and to infuse that energy into every day.  i feel ready to leave bali and go on to something else, but that doesn't mean i won't be looking out the plane tomorrow until i can't see the rice fields any more :)  it really is such a unique and dynamic and beautiful place here, where a culture is so alive and practiced within the development and tourism and business of every day life.  yesterday i watched a woman in the laundry place give an offering to their little altar, a stick of incense burning stuck over a little tray of flowers, she flicked holy water three times on the altar and opened her palm forward.

i can't put it all into one entry...the integration process will be a process for sure, and i'm curious what it will be like for both of us.  the ways we've expanded and grown, the things we've learned about ourselves and each other and people and places and the world in general are all things we couldn't have learned unless everything had been exactly as it's been.  i'm excited to put some photos online when we get to los angeles so that you all can see where and who we've been for the past five weeks!

images....
bicycles carrying an overflowing haul of cleaning supplies; ducks waddling together down the rice field and squishing their feet in the mud and laughing their quacking way together; the warm welcoming face of wayan as he opens the gate for us every night and says selamat malam (good evening); komong's smile when we greet him each morning and say "apa kabar?" (what's up/what's the news)  and answer "bagus!" (good!) like clockwork every morning, i love it, sometimes we raise our voices high or lower them deep to have fun; living in a town so small that you run into your friends every day, sometimes several times in a day; balinese people walking down the street in their ceremonial clothing, women carrying towering tall offerings on their heads; a dead chicken hanging upside down from someone's hand as they drive home on the motorbike; a lineup of motorbikes and cars all the way down the street from the gas station because of petrol shortage; fluorescent blue fish; women walking towards me with a stack of sarongs on their head, "for good luck"  "good for me, good for you!"; the smell of a durian; a circle of new and old friends holding hands and wishing each other well on their journey; rain so hard like a waterfall, rivers in the streets, and all dried up an hour later; red hibiscus flowers placed in the palms and behind the ears of stone deity statues; the view of the rice fields (really, there might not be many more things as beautiful as the bali countryside); a white heron resting on a tree; two giant glass containers filled with lala and lily's vegetable curry; a monkey holding it's little baby in it's arms and nursing; the string of "lasts" that we'll have today, saying goodbye to friends and places and favorite dishes of foods and views and sights and smiles and routines and little bits of home that have sprung themselves up all around us here.  tomorrow we head out at noon to drive down to the airport, and jump on a plane to hong kong, have a three hour layover, and then fly on over to los angeles to be rescued after the long journey by our good friend rocket.  it will be nice to have some time to recover from the 20 hour journey and the 15 hour time difference~ and what better place to do that then los angeles, wow!  not a better place for american reverse culture shock, if i do say so myself!

carson is off getting his birthday massage, a gift from chloe and liam.  i'm going to go meet him, and we'll make our rounds.  we look forward to seeing you all again soon!  it *has* been a long time.  there will be so much to share and to catch up on.  lots of good long hugs and sighs and happy little sounds too.  it will be a blast!

see you soon!
melissa & carson


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