Nyepi 2

The streets in Renon are already fairly bare of traffic, anticipating the silence to come. Just a few people, people like me, rushing out to buy a last minute item. Potato chips. Cigarettes. A child in the house behind me is playing a single note on a little horn, like a New Years horn. The rain has stopped, and the evening is mercifully cool after so many days of suffocating heat. It will be a good day to sleep, a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and heal, and wake again to the careworn, clamorous world.

Nyepi Day

Tomorrow is Nyepi, the day of silence in Bali, and this year I expect to appreciate it for the first time, as my plan is to sleep through the day, if possible. The flu on the top of the flu has really kicked my ass, especially given that I've had to prepare for moving my household to another location, and especially in heat that has been a pinch worse than perfectly suffocating. It's just me getting all the stuff in the house packed, and it has been exhausting. Sore throat, fever, coughing, body aches, fatigue--the hold nine yards. A thousand thanks (NOT) to the landlord for deciding to renege on our two year agreement and decide he wanted me out in 2 weeks. 

So happy Nyepi Day, all; and many more to come. 

New Life

New life about to begin in a new place. Maybe I'll remember this one. Even though I enjoyed the last four years in my little house in Renon, I have only a vague memory of what it was I enjoyed. In fact, I have only vague memories of the past eight years in Bali. I've visited many places, for instance, in Bali and abroad. I've been to Kuala Lumpur and Penang and Bangkok and the southern islands of Thailand and Singapore and Solo and Jogyakarta and Jakarta, but I don't remember very much about these places. I remember that Kuala Lumpur was a very modern, very tidy city. I remember the fried insects that are a delicacy in Bangkok. I remember the pleasant people in Solo and Louis' uncle and brother in Jogyakarta, and I remember nothing whatever about Jakarta except traffic jams. Oh, I remember the fast train … somewhere … and a giant golden statue of the Buddha. Bits and pieces. I remember when my stepson lived with us in Renon and taking the school bus to school and home again and how he'd close himself in his room and play videogames nonstop and how he would become glum if he had to go with us on some "fun" excursion. I remember laughing. I remember watching Mr. Bean with him and laughing and laughing. I remember Sparky, the black and white dog whose real name was not Sparky. 

There is much of the long ago past that I remember very clearly. Very clearly indeed. But much of the present, much of the last couple decades, is a blur. Or absent altogether. A sad thing in its way. An inability to appreciate the things you have forgotten. On the other hand, I suppose it can be a good thing too, especially where separation, the end of a marriage is concerned. One cannot be very sorrowful over what he cannot remember anyway. If I miss anything very keenly about Louis, it is the Louis of 10 and 12 years ago, the girl I called "Tikus" (mouse in Indonesian).  But she left along the way. I guess we all leave along the way. She once said that I myself had changed. I wasn't who I used to be. I didn't believe it then, but perhaps she was right. Do we change, or do we just become dull, lazy, careworn? The spark is gone, women will often say. A cliché, sure, but even clichés are based on real things, real feelings. There's no more romance, no more electricity. And men will say, "Well, that's your fault!" Lol. Am I not what I used to be? I don't know. Most often, when I remember what I used to be, in the way that I remember it, I have to cringe. 

The new area I'm moving to is tucked in between Sanur and Renon. It's not an area I had previously spent much time in, as there was no reason to do so. I do remember looking at a house in the area once with Louis. But for the most part, I've only driven past on the motorbike. So it will be interesting to explore new places and new sights. I'm the sort of person who puts down roots, very stubborn roots, wherever I happen to be. A bit of a strange thing to say about an Oregonian who ended up in Bali. But I never picture anything changing. Or rather, I don't like to picture it. Set me down in a certain place, wind me up, and watch me trace the same circles day in and day out. Change comes upon me, like a piano falling from a fifth story window. I don't seek it, but I adapt, pressing always toward permanence. 

Movin On

Hallelujah. I found a place to live. Or rather, it was found by my friend Christoph, who already lives there. Two wild and crazy guys with MS in the same place! 

This is a small western style apartment complex (although if you've never seen an Indonesian apartment complex, you won' t know what I mean). It is clean, quiet, functional, and the couple who manage the place are wonderfully nice people. Also, it has a swimming pool! I'm moving up in the world, man. 

Moreover, there is plenty of room (again, comparatively) and I will be able to bring my main pieces of furniture, including my expensive King Koil bed. 

So the move is set for Sunday next, for which I have reserved the able services of my Sumba friend, Samuel.  

Housing Update

In an effort, apparently, to win the grand asshole prize, my landlord has decided that I must be out of the house by the 15th  of this month. 

Although I have a couple friends helping in a search for a new place, it seems very likely that I will need to move all the furniture, and myself, to Louis' villa in Sanur and continue to look from that locale. 

In the meantime, the flu continues to thrive. 

Home

Jeeze, I hate looking for a place to live. I'm so cozy in my little house, after four years here, as is the big fat brown dog and the little black dog. But then, it's not my little house, is it? In fact, I have less than a month to get the hell out. 

So far, the places I've looked at are pretty gloomy. Tiny, drab, not clean. Ugh. I begin to say to myself, "Okay, that's enough, I want to go home now." Like Tutor Turtle in the old cartoon, if anyone remembers that. Tutor would get an idea of something he wanted to do--like be an astronaut, or a caveman, or what have you--and his friend, Mr. Wizard, would say a magic spell and Tutor would be transported into his desire. It never went well, and Tutor Turtle soon found himself in trouble. "Help, Mr. Wizard!' he would say, "I want to get out of here. I don't want to be an astronaut anymore." At which point, Mr. Wizard would chant the spell, "Trizzle, Trazzle, Truzzle, Trum, time for this one to come home." 

I say to myself, I want to go home. 

But I have no home to go to. 

Here We Go Again

Okay, so, well, here we go again. I've got about a month to find a new place to live, thanks to my landlord's sudden decision that he prefers not to live up to the two year arrangement we had agreed to one year ago. Couldn't have come at a worse time. I'm still waiting on receiving my renewed passport, still in the middle of the irritating foreign resident renewal process, still feel lousy with the flu, and Louis is somewhere in Thailand for a month, making it difficult to arrange certain administrative necessities such as large transfers of money (Foreigners are not allowed to have Indonesian bank accounts).