Nyepi Diary

3/17, 7:47, Nyepi Day--Well, I’ll be damned—they did turn off the internet! Not just the public internet, but dedicated internet providers as well, like Biznet, which I use in the house. Every year they threaten to do this, but these have always been empty threats in the past.

So, Quiet Day will most certainly be a quiet day. No internet, no TV shows, no social media, no WhatsApp. Nada. 

As always, I slept straight through the night (thanks to Xanax). And I awoke as always with a sense of melancholy, or of ennui. I dreamed that I had gotten Nyepi all wrong. I had apparently begun it a day early. I was out somewhere with a lot of other people and I met with a family that may have been from The Netherlands. Their precocious little girl befriended me and admired my wide brimmed, flower decorated hat. I explained that it was my wife’s hat and I had mistaken it that morning for a hat of my own.

There is often a friendly little girl in my dreams. Sometimes I know who she is, sometimes I don’t. A long time ago, I went to a ‘psychic’ (so called) and one thing he told me is that he saw a little girl who needed me, and who loved me very much. That’s about the only part of what the psychic said that I remember very well. But then again, I don’t believe in psychic powers. I do believe in a powerful sort of intuition, but not in someone who can hold some object that you own and tell your future for you.

In a certain way, silent day is lost on me, for I cannot hear the silence. What I can hear, even more acutely than usual, is the ringing in my ears. I am, therefore, especially thankful for the crowing of the roosters, and the cooing of the Bali Starlings, and the barking of the dog down the street, who has apparently not been told that this is silent day. Other than that, one hears no human noise at all, at least to this point in the morning. In the house behind mine, however, there are three small children, who will soon awake and will no doubt have something to say, regardless of whether speech is appropriate or not. Children don’t do silent day. 

2:00 pm—Wifi came back later on in the morning and has been on and off since then. Perhaps someone in the Biznet office throws the switch whenever he wants to go online. Who knows?

The big fat brown dog clearly does not know the rules of Nyepi (everyone is forbidden to go outside the house), or perhaps she does not believe they apply to her (and she is probably right). In any case, she’s just made her second trip of the day to my house looking for snacks.

So far, it has been very quiet indeed. Haven’t heard a single voice, even from children. Only the birds and the buzzing insects, and I’m sure they find this arrangement preferable. They must be thinking, “It’s a miracle! The people are gone!”

7:30 pm—Well, that went fast. Almost over. The sky appears clear, so I’ll be able to see the stars later on. Providing that I can stay awake.