Satisfying things that stave off uninvited waking nightmares:
The fake camera click on my cell phone each time I take a picture
Long conversations unpacking the nuances of writing craft and literature
Hats that cover the bandage that cover the scar of freshly removed stitches
It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.
Cracked open in Ubud. Healing in Amed.
I cling to the back of Wayan as he speeds over steep, mountain switchbacks and narrow, rocky, unpaved roads. No one would dare drive on these roads unless you grew up here--which I decide, is precisely why they've been left in this condition. The deeper I explore this island the more I realize it's not near as ruined as people like to think it is. The natives of Bali know exactly what they are doing. They know how to protect what is important to them, what is sacred.
We stop at the peak above the clouds to watch the sun dip below Mount Agung to the west. Family compounds and terraced rice fields cut into the mountain sides and nestle into the crevices. The silence is deafening. The air crisp. The colors sharp. I've never felt more alive.
When I first came to Amed back in 2016, a local told me that the last time Mount Agung erupted was 1963. The entire Amed coast was wiped out. Since my first visit, Mount Agung has erupted roughly 15 times, the last being June of this year. Like the natives to this land, the island knows how to protect itself.
We make our way down into one of the valleys, to Wayan's home. His three little girls study me like a strange new toy, and I show them the pictures that I had taken 3 years prior when I first met them--their eyes big with surprise. The twins were just babies then. His wife brings me a small glass of the strongest and sweetest coffee I've ever tasted. It takes me nearly an hour to drink.
I loop the compound snapping photos, inadvertently scaring the chickens and pigs. Night falls and it's time to head back to the coast.
The full moon rises, and I fall asleep listening to the waves lap the shore.
Only a week prior I was exploring the dusty roads of Labuhan Bajo on Flores, hiking the arid ridges of Padar Island, sinking my toes into the pastel sand of Pink Beach, and standing feet away from komodo dragons and manta rays in Komodo National Park. A surreal and magical experience. The kind I disappear into far too easily. Little did I know what would happen the next day.
As I prepare to leave Bali, I tell myself won't return, but I always do. And each time, it reveals new layers of itself. Eyes wide open, it says to me this time. Not in a whisper, but a shout.
I drive south down the winding coast road--a steep cliff on one side, a scattering of small, coastal villages on the other. I rarely pass another driver. I stop and take in the raw landscape. Images forever imprinted in my mind, in my writing, in the pictures I take. My life a series of patchwork stories, stitched together with nothing but photographs and old journals.
Our past is always in flux, never fixed. Do you ever look back on old photos or writings or revisit a place and see new layers? Do they tell you new and different stories each time?
It's been a month since the accident. The waking nightmares have subsided. I'm overwhelmed with relieve and happiness and gratitude to be back in Thailand, to be back in my little hut on the island. But before I move forward with island life posts, I'll step back two weeks and tell you stories from Greece!
The fake camera click on my cell phone each time I take a picture
Long conversations unpacking the nuances of writing craft and literature
Hats that cover the bandage that cover the scar of freshly removed stitches
It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.
Cracked open in Ubud. Healing in Amed.
I cling to the back of Wayan as he speeds over steep, mountain switchbacks and narrow, rocky, unpaved roads. No one would dare drive on these roads unless you grew up here--which I decide, is precisely why they've been left in this condition. The deeper I explore this island the more I realize it's not near as ruined as people like to think it is. The natives of Bali know exactly what they are doing. They know how to protect what is important to them, what is sacred.
We stop at the peak above the clouds to watch the sun dip below Mount Agung to the west. Family compounds and terraced rice fields cut into the mountain sides and nestle into the crevices. The silence is deafening. The air crisp. The colors sharp. I've never felt more alive.
When I first came to Amed back in 2016, a local told me that the last time Mount Agung erupted was 1963. The entire Amed coast was wiped out. Since my first visit, Mount Agung has erupted roughly 15 times, the last being June of this year. Like the natives to this land, the island knows how to protect itself.
We make our way down into one of the valleys, to Wayan's home. His three little girls study me like a strange new toy, and I show them the pictures that I had taken 3 years prior when I first met them--their eyes big with surprise. The twins were just babies then. His wife brings me a small glass of the strongest and sweetest coffee I've ever tasted. It takes me nearly an hour to drink.
I loop the compound snapping photos, inadvertently scaring the chickens and pigs. Night falls and it's time to head back to the coast.
The full moon rises, and I fall asleep listening to the waves lap the shore.
Only a week prior I was exploring the dusty roads of Labuhan Bajo on Flores, hiking the arid ridges of Padar Island, sinking my toes into the pastel sand of Pink Beach, and standing feet away from komodo dragons and manta rays in Komodo National Park. A surreal and magical experience. The kind I disappear into far too easily. Little did I know what would happen the next day.
As I prepare to leave Bali, I tell myself won't return, but I always do. And each time, it reveals new layers of itself. Eyes wide open, it says to me this time. Not in a whisper, but a shout.
I drive south down the winding coast road--a steep cliff on one side, a scattering of small, coastal villages on the other. I rarely pass another driver. I stop and take in the raw landscape. Images forever imprinted in my mind, in my writing, in the pictures I take. My life a series of patchwork stories, stitched together with nothing but photographs and old journals.
Our past is always in flux, never fixed. Do you ever look back on old photos or writings or revisit a place and see new layers? Do they tell you new and different stories each time?
It's been a month since the accident. The waking nightmares have subsided. I'm overwhelmed with relieve and happiness and gratitude to be back in Thailand, to be back in my little hut on the island. But before I move forward with island life posts, I'll step back two weeks and tell you stories from Greece!
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