Where the Day Begins

Seven-thirty in the morning and the sun is already gazing with keen interest upon the little neighborhood of Renon, South Bali, pushing back the puffy curtain of clouds in the east, climbing to the rooftops and to the crowns of the leafy trees, touching my skin and coaxing a dewy response from the pores in my neck and shoulders. I'm on my usual route, passing the usual houses and the usual people. "Good morning, Pak! Jalan-jalan, ya." A motorbike zips by, school girl on the back in her brown uniform. "Hallllloooo!" Up ahead in the pasture some cows have come out to the road to meet a woman crossing with a huge basket on her shoulder. The basket is filled with leaves and other forms of vegetation. Breakfast! As she empties the basket on the grass, a bull pushes his way into the midst of the group, snout to the new feast, and the woman scolds him and shoves him mightily, budging him not one fraction of an inch from his chosen ground. Gosh, what a convenient way to dispose of yard debris! Halfway home now. The cows crunch at their leafy mouthfuls, glancing up with mild curiosity as I pass by, their eyes as slow and insouciant as the simmering day. To the end of the pasture, on past the moldering shack and the old sofa sinking into the soil, up the alley and past the shrine to Ganesha and to the head of Yeh Sungi, where the big fat brown dog is waiting, tail uncertainly wagging (for her eyes are no longer as sharp as they once were). Knowing me then, she lumbers down the street toward my house, this lumbering being her version of a trot. And I lumbar along behind her. This is the morning walk. This is the beginning of the day.