I have not taken one picture in two days. Why not? I don't even know what picture to take - not for lack of potential subjects, but lack of inspiration on my part. I wonder if it's the heat. I'm napping every day, the kind of heavy sleep where I wake sweating and disoriented for at least another hour. Discussions with two people who have lived here for 3+ months and 13 years respectively reveal that it's not just hot to me, but to them too and they find themselves equally unmotivated right now.
At the same time, there is a mental battle of wanting to dive in and see and do every second I'm here, versus the lethargy. Yesterday consisted of healing mostly. My sunburns were raging, my limbs swollen and aching from the intense swimming and the injury to their surface. I watched half of Quantum of Solace, made a couple of quick meals, drank a beer with Aaron and the extremely charming and lovely neighbor, and internally argued with myself over what I am not doing.
Art. No. Photography. Not that day. Peace? Definitely not. Yesterday was the anniversary of my wedding in 2009. The thought didn't enter my head much during the day, but sometime soon after nightfall the whole idea of it struck me breathless. Regret, tears, anger, sadness, all rushing in with the single thought. I considered going deeper into it, allowing myself to relive part of the day, but that just felt maschostic. Instead, I poured out two shots of the yet-unopened Glenfiddich 12 year scotch I'd purchased duty free. I perched on the day bed where Aaron was working on his computer and watching The Road, and we toasted the morose, my anniversary, and I managed to keep all tears to myself despite a wavering voice from self-pity party tear-thick-throat.
Today was better. Not in the stunning degree that I hold out as a gauge for success in international travel, but better. I woke, realized my ATM card was still not working, my cell phone was out of minutes, and I didn't have enough rupiah to keep my Honda Scoopie running further than a few kilometers. I used Aaron's cell to call and text the surf school to get a start time on my lesson, called the bank and confirmed that everything was okay there, why not here, and let the stress creep in. When I heard from the surf school, I had about 15 minutes before I needed to leave, so I forewent breakfast and gathered up my gear.
Yesterday I had realized that I wanted to be in the water. A lot. I'd like to be an okay beginning surfer by the time I leave here and that's going to take a lot of hours in the water and sun. As much as I love reapplying sunscreen every hour after emerging, dripping wet from the ocean, I wanted to simplify that process and minimize exposure. Simple, right? SPF water clothes. And in the land of surfing, this should be easy to find. It was. And it was expensive.
I asked around and Aaron again came to my rescue with a lead on discount sporting goods being sold in Kuta, on Sunset Highway. The store was enormous and had exactly what I needed for half of the price of the stores in my current neighborhood. I bought 3, long-sleeve shirts and came home to modify them PDX style. I turned two sleeves into leg coverings to my knees, complete with a half-assed button-hole stitch around the heel holes I cut in them to cover as much of my feet as possible.
Today my efforts paid off. No new sun damage. A few laughs and weird looks from locals, but I'm only treating the sunburn of two days ago. I have a few more mods for the gear, including a thumb hole on the sleeves to keep the backs of my hands covered and a way of tightening the tops of the leggings. My surf instructor, Artha, patiently rolled up the tops of my leggings to cover the backs of my knees as we bobbed around in a relatively quiet ocean. He calls me "Beauty", a great nickname for any woman whose actual name you can't remember. Due to the flat ocean, we ended up chatting a lot about music and he did some beautiful Balinese chants to help me "relax" for that wave about to show up. He tells me to relax a lot, actually. We both took turns trying to stand up on the board without any wave and I got in a lot of practice paddling around.
The few waves I attempted to ride were good and I really appreciated being on a much shorter board today. I'm hoping I get to go even smaller tomorrow. My greatest improvement-needed areas today were gripping the sides of the board while standing and looking down at the board too much. I did manage to bail in time to not clobber one of the hottest guys I'd seen yet on the beach, holding his infant daughter and looking like he was debating which direction was best to leap in to avoid me.
After my lesson, I hung out at the surf school with a handful of VERY relaxed surf instructors, all Balinese and all under 25. One was playing his guitar and he tried out all of his American pop songs and we'd all join in with broken English and actual English (me) to the chorus of Santaria by Sublime, or Sweet Child of Mine ("you like roses and guns?" he asked me). It's a holy day today and everyone has on their best Balinese traditional outfits, offerings litter every surface and are sometimes piled precariously on top of old, rotting ones. The incense here is thick and delicious, appealing to me in a way that Thai incense never did. Even the folks at the surf school were in their best outfits. Artha reached into a basket from some celebration and handed out Balinese cupcakes, and fed us all amazing and strange fruit. My favorite was what looked like a beige, thick-skinned grape with sour/sweet partitioned fruit inside. If I see more of those, I'm buying them by the bag.
After about an hour of us discussing music, festivals, their favorite bar, the joys of mushroom shakes (bizarrely legal here), and a host of innuendos that thankfully the language barrier kept me clueless about, I left to solve the mystery of the non-working ATM card. I did my usual over-engineering of how to solve this, including a step by step outline of how to get to the money I desperately needed (I'm HUNGRY!), and Aaron and I made a fast lunch out of pasta, pesto, roasted tomatoes, and a simple salad (temporarily NOT hungry!). I left with a pound of sunscreen applied and every possible method of getting rupiah in my bag. The $25 US I'd exchanged for an entrance fee to Indonesia that was never collected but could be re-exchanged (did I mention I was out of cigarettes too? Hello motivation), a passport, every bank card I had, and my trusty map that was a few inches short of the details I needed to find Citibank.
At the first bank of ATMs, I only had to try two to find the ONE bank that will issue me cash. I am now wholly dependent on the bright orange ATM machines, but relieved that I had enough rupiah to fill the tank on the Scoopie and set off to reactivate my Citibank account. This landed me in Denpasar, the capital city. When I'd driven far longer than I thought I needed to to find the one Citibank branch in all of Bali, I pulled over and a very helpful local told me the exact directions. He was right and I pulled into the parking lot to find I had arrived 30 minutes past closing. It should be a simple matter to go back and my map showed a lot of promising routes. Naturally I took the one that swung me several kilometers further away from where I'm living, as I discovered when I pulled into a Circle K and reviewed with the staff.
I figured this was a good time to top up my phone, in case I needed to call Aaron to find my way back, but I didn't know my phone number. Four desk clerks exchanging SIM cards with me and 30 minutes later, I was handed one of their phones and remarkably Aaron was on the line. I have no idea how this transpired, but I can only assume they went through my phone book until they found a Bali number and dialed it. He gave me my phone number and it was only 20 more minutes before my phone had $10 on it, we were all on a first-name basis, and one of the bolder male clerks had been turned down on getting my number for more personal reasons.
It was only a few more wrong turns and I was back. Determined to get in at least another hour of surf practice, I ran in and out and scooted down to the beach for the last hour of sunlight to find a flat ocean and a smattering of hopefuls trying to ride anything before calling it a day. I gave up, went back to the house, and had a high-quality sweaty nap. Now it's nighttime, the waxing gibbous moon high overhead, Aaron and the fabulous french neighbor just left for an invite-only restaurant opening and I'm snacking on Indonesian roasted broadbeans and almonds.
I have this general restless feeling that has been growing since my arrival. I'm wanting to get my hands on this place, take photos, and be more than hot and overwhelmed. Tomorrow surf lesson starts at 8am, which will likely keep me tied to the house and headed to bed directly after work. We'll see, I guess. Something's got to change for me. Either I have adventure, or I do some serious "relax" and be grateful for what is. Can't see how I can lose really.