This is how you / I know I live here now. Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. April 2020
March 25th, 2020
I was scheduled to fly home to New York today.
Yesterday and the day before I got what Debbie calls “the fear bug” or “a fear bug” and I completely packed up and made all the preparations to try and fly home.
I was reading too much Facebook. Listening to too much external input. Fear fear fear fear fear fear concern fear worry fear fear fear fear. It got so loud that I couldn’t actually hear my inner guidance.
Linnea suggested that I meditate and very clearly ask my inner guides for guidance on this matter.
I said, “Okay, I’ll ask my inner mentor.”
It took a while to be ready to visit her, actually. I prepared myself a little pillow cocoon — three pillows behind me for propping-up, one in front, longways around my middle, just below my breasts. I don’t know when I started meditating this way, but it feels absolutely right. So caring.
I sat and realized that I was very hungry, nauseatingly, grumblingly hungry. So I got up, went to the terrace, and ate a hard-boiled egg. I sat again, and got an idea for what to call my video course on communication skills. I got up and wrote it down. (So I wouldn’t lose it.)
I sat and got a couple of ideas for units to add to the video course. So I wrote them down. (By this point I had my notebook close to me.)
I sat and systematically relaxed my muscles. I had to remind a few parts of me to release. Especially my right inner groin. That took a little while, but I felt myself settle back into the pillow more as it began to soften. I let my palms turn up. I watched my thoughts dance. Sang the songs that were playing on repeat in my mind (in my mind, not aloud). I thought about most of those pros and cons and cons and cons and I continued sitting until a peace settled over me, like the Buddhist adage of the mud in the jar, until the dirt settled and the water cleared, and I felt blissfully relaxed. So relaxed that for a moment I didn’t even know that I was relaxed. I waited to see if that state would settle in me for a little while. Because that felt like the right state to ask my inner mentor for guidance. I had one slight jolt out of that state, almost like waking up when you’re dozing off, a little electricity to the muscles… but then I settled again. Enough to travel to that light-filled white room with the hardwood floors and all those plants. Her living room. Again I could see her hair but not her face. She was so loving. And I asked, “What should I do?”
“Stay,” I heard her say quietly, before the visualization disappeared instantly, and I’m not sure what happened after that, but I realized that I was incredibly weary, and lay down immediately in the fetal position on my left side.
Even though she said “Stay,” it was so quiet that I felt unsure if she had really said that, if it had really come from a deeper knowing or from my surface brain. And because the visualization disappeared so quickly, I just…
Didn’t know.
And I got up from the fetal position eventually and just let my body start packing. Because my body wanted to Do Something. So I spent most of yesterday packing and washing clothes by hand. Which clothes would I really need if I got stuck in Qatar for a while and they lost my baggage? Which clothes could I wash by hand and be reasonably certain that they would dry in time for me to head to the airport with dry clothes? Which recording equipment was absolutely essential, and which could go in my checked bag? How could I get absolutely everything necessary into the carry-on so that the guitar could be my second piece of hand luggage? (Prepared to beg, prepared to cry to get my guitar on the plane and safely into the overhead bin. Researched Qatar’s policy on guitars, which said that as long as it can fit in the overhead, you can bring it on a flight, but if it can’t, you have to check it. Not understanding centimeters and not having a tape measure, I couldn’t be sure that it would fit, but I would just have to take my chances. My guitar!) Where could I leave my helmets? (Luciana loves the orange one, I’d leave them with her.) What food can I carry; what food do I need to give away? (Made a bag for Luciana & Jonas with the unopened chia seeds, honey, coconut syrup, etc.) Could I see friends before I go? (Lulu invited me to dinner at their place.) Who will drive me to the airport? (Badra.) Can Kadek come and get the scooter key and rental payment? (Yes.) What do I do with this extra piece of luggage? And so on. And so forth.
I told a bunch of people I was going to try to come home, including my mom.
(Mistake. Lesson: Only tell mom of your decisions when you are beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt certain.)
Told folks at the Villa. All my closest friends.
Another housemate said he might have Covid too. The prospect of traveling with a cold, 40 hours at least and possibly to get stranded, to be quarantined in my room for two weeks, on a floor with two sick inhabitants…. Stress descending like a plague of locusts.
And then I went over to Jonas & Luciana’s. And Jonas was so calm. The music. The cooking. Swedish meatballs and raspberry compote (in place of lingonberry) and cucumber salad and mashed potatoes that I smashed myself, grateful for the action of mashing. Emotional release through mashed potatoes.
I hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in almost two months. It was such calm.
And I calmly shared with them my fears around the dinner table. And they didn’t try to dissuade me.
But Jonas reminded me of two crucial facts. The Balinese here live in compounds with their family, and it was only one generation ago that they lived directly off of the land, and not from tourism. They can do it again, perhaps far more easily than most. They take care of each other. He believes that civil unrest and rioting will happen in New York, in Stockholm, but not here in Bali. And the land here is fruitful, literally, all year round. We won’t starve here. There will always be fruit. There will always be food. In our home cities, they rely on supermarkets. They do not have direct access to crops.
And then he said to me, and I felt so grateful I could cry. “You will never be without a roof. You have friends here.”
I won’t be without a roof.
I won’t be without food.
I’m going to be all right.
Even if I run out of money, I’ll be all right. I have networks. I will be all right. And I will find ways to work online. They are already happening.
I will be alright. I’ll be better off here.
After dinner, they lounged and I bounced on one of those big yoga balls, up and down up and down, letting my insides slosh and my arms levitate, and I felt so much better.
I came back to my bungalow hotel room and I felt full. Luciana said, “You’ll know what to do tomorrow.”
“How?” I asked.
But I did. I do. I’m letting that flight go without me.
I’m here. I will weather this time in history in Bali, with fine weather, a small group of friends, and my guitar. I will make art and make art. I will offer my connection skills, which are ever more needed.
I will be all right.
