Bali vignettes

Ritual

Any excuse for a festival. There seems to be one every other day.

Processions of locals in white skirts (men too) and shirts, women balancing baskets or gilded platters on their heads. Rice fields open up between towns, green stalks so luscious it defines the color. Each small village is home to ancient grey stone temples, their entrance marked by a growling mythical figure, nestled between cement shacks with corrugated tin or bamboo roofs. The music is a cacophony of sounds that all sound like xylophones at various pitches. Prayers are chanted by local priests, muttering and gesturing wildly, their hands passing through curls of smoke from ubiquitous red incense sticks. Offerings, tokens and marigolds laying on origami coconut leaf baskets, are laid at alters. Buddhist temples, beset with animist rituals. There will be another tomorrow, same time. Listen for the chimes.

SUP

Surfing has scarred me since the first attempt resulted in a concussion and a broken foam longboard. So my concession to the gnawing fear mixed with FOMO (Katie tells me I have a bad case of "Fear Of Missing Out") has led to a week in Sanur, a sleepy beach town where I will conquer this apprehension. The owner of the shop is a bitchy, skinny Italian with a bleached out mohawk. He chains my left ankle to the stand-up-paddle board. So now I'm committed. Or at least my left foot is. Paddling about a kilometer out to the break is easy, using my kayak skills (Vivian taught me to pull from my lats). But the break, now that's another story. I kneel on the board and approach the wave, which hurls over the sandbar and curls into a wall of foamy turquoise water. The instructor spins me around, tells me to paddle faster before I've even started, and I feel the wave on my tail. It lifts up the back of my board, suddenly floating. I leap to my feet, the paddle grasped between my palm and the sandpaper side of the board. I'm flying now, legs perched athletically, my paddle a rudder steering me toward the white beach. Then I'm immersed, head full of cold ocean; my left ankle tugs at me to get back up.

Yoga

Inhalation, exhalation. Iyan breathes like a puppy in the hot backseat. It's so fast that I can't even finish sinking from plank before I'm instructed to rise from downward dog. I settle into my own rhythm, my closed eyes sense the morning sun peek over the summit of the volcano. The sky is a palate of pastels, blending into each other each time we peek. We are used to a palm jungle behind the studio at the retreat, a waking riot of cawing birds and hooting geckos. The volcano is stonily quiet, our breaths in unison chant a prayer to the glorious morning. Iyan takes us through the familiar poses, warming our bodies along with the eggyolk sun. The startling beauty knocks me off balance in reverse triangle. We might soon be rewarded with glutinous black rice steeped in warm coconut milk and some tart ginger tea.