Saya mao tidur secorang (I go to sleep now)

After so many days, overflowing with so many golden hours of stunning amazement and emotion and languages and people, I find I am craving some quiet time.

I get up with the morning light, jalan-jalan (walk) to the market with Anni, we eat delicious, hot noodle soup -- on a hot day -- from her friend's warung (little restaurant) and somehow it's the best thing ever, I practice my Indonesian every chance I get, learning more and more words every day. Impressing Anni and Oka's friends and family with my new fluency (Pintar! or Smart! They point at me.) My words are almost as impressive as my iron-clad stomach, as I keep my vow to try everything put in front of me. And I do. The only thing I don't try is Anni's ayam (chicken) soup with two, whole and cooked to a golden-orange-hue-I-can-see-their-eyes-beaks-and-head-flappy-thingys-in-her-soup-as-I-drink-mine chicken heads floating on top. (Since it was Anni's soup and it wasn't put in front of me so I didn't feel compelled...)

At dinner, we each leave a little left on our plates at dinner, claim to be full, and one by one drop bites (sometimes plates) of food in front of bony & threadbare Anjing - the wild dog who's slowly getting less fearful of our voices and sudden movements. Sometimes she even sits at my feet as I work. (Yes, I work in Bali...but I don't mind at all. I'm pretty happy to have a job that lets me do this. I can't believe it actually. And I like the "break". It feels good to use my head, crunch numbers and think logically. It's a great balance to the Indonesian immersion lifestyle I've found myself suddenly living). I greet passing neighbors and strangers in Indonesian. I read books I've been trying for years to finish, I sit on the teracotta balcony railing, feel the sun and watch the ducks, the fireflys, the trees, the world doing it's thing. I stay up well past bed-time, writing. Madly typing out the memories of the day in fear I'll forget the magic, if I put it off any longer. I think and I dream, a lot. It's a quiet and magical time. Something about being here, getting here after all the struggle to make it happen, the last minute altercations, the doubt that it might not be good, that I might be making a mistake, but knowing it just had to do this...it makes me realize how valuable it is to push through difficult situations, past comfort zones and doubt -- into brave, new, colorful worlds.

I read a colleague turned friend's post on fear and hope. How often we react(and live life reacting to) only our imagined fears in the mind's quest for certainty. It's much easier than admitting to the presence of real doubt, uncertainty and fear--and willfully staring into these things and pushing through it....the childish fear of the bogey man in the closet, until we will ourselves to open that door and stand still while we see what's there--only to find nothing, or something else entirely. Reading his words echo somethings I think I'm starting to realize now, in my heart and head and life. I want to embrace my doubts more, know what they are, so instead of running from them, I can ease into them slowly, gently like a yoga pose or deep breath. Until I am walking forward and I am letting go of fears. I think that's why I've been writing, posting, flinging open various doors and windows in my life the last few months. I fear putting so much out there -- the good, great....and the most vulnerably human part of myself when I'm falling down -- but at the same time, I just want to try living my life, exploring who I am and this world and how I connect with other people, in a more open, honest way. See what those in my life do with this. What I do with this! And somehow, I think this is a start to something...

Days and nights merge lazily into others. I sleep to the sound of talking frogs, who constantly gurgle in the muddy depths, outside my window like little slimy madmen.

And, then the internet breaks. It's my Balinese lifeline -- without it I can't work. Fear. Frustration. I don't know what happened, just woke up one morning and it was gone. Again and again, I try all I can think of, still no internet. Calling an Indonesian help desk is not going to be fun. So I go another route, I set out a cup of Coca Cola and one of my "Better" chocolate crackers on the table. I say a quick prayer to the internet gods. Anni laughs, and I cross my fingers. Four hours later the internet is back. I work from the dinning room table, as Balinese breezes blow through the open kitchen. For the most part, it feels like a dream. And I hear myself wonder: what next...