Basking

Basking in pleasing thoughts is like catching a good wave and riding it for every inch it will carry you.  I love being in the tide of inspiration, or basking in a wonderful memory.  Sometimes I find myself falling off surf out of basking and into the churning deep, sucked into the undertow.

The other day, for example.  Asher and I had important errands in Denpasar, the grimy congested capitol.  I wanted to go by car and Asher wanted to go by motorbike.  Our

usual driver had another job for the day so we took off on the motorbike, although we have never driven ourselves into the maze of Denpasar.

Driving in Bali is a dance.  Sharing the narrow roads are endless streams of motorbikes flowing around cars, oversized tourist buses, and open bed trucks carrying rocks or filled to capacity with villagers dressed for ceremony.  The motorbikes pass on the left or the right at will, shooting through gaps of oncoming traffic and dodging, on the roadside, elders carrying agricultural products in baskets balanced on bamboo poles, school children in uniforms, processions of sarong clad devotees with offerings on their heads, a little kid with a bike too big for him, a dog or a chicken darting out of a family compound... It sounds chaotic but it is not; driving in Bali has rhythm and consciousness.  It is a spiritual practice for all involved, an opportunity to be keenly present, to chart your course and yet always give way to another.  The rule of the road is grace.

It's one thing to drive through villages and past rice fields, and quite another to drive into Denpasar.  Aside from the congestion, the fumes and the hot sun, road signage is minimal and directions are usually along the lines of, "turn right at the street light that is not a light."  We memorize the names of the streets we need to get to and don't bother with the numbers as addresses in Bali are not sequential.  We just go for it, Asher and I on the rented motorbike.  We get closer and closer.  We know we are closer because the traffic thickens and the street options increase.  At one junction I spontaneously, without thought, tell Asher to turn right.  A moment later we are on the very street of our first destination, a silk shop, as if transported by fairy dust.

If we had gone home after that I could have easily basked in the ease of the journey, but we went to our next destination.  We found it without difficulty, but it was much farther than I remembered, meaning more fumes and more baking in the sun.  The real challenge was in returning home.  I was getting hot and tired of being on a motorbike seat when Asher decided to take a turn that I sensed was going in the opposite direction of where we live.  The road went on, and on, and on.  Asher said, "let's manifest a magical place to have a cold drink," but instead we passed endless Balinese compounds, ending up on a major road I recognized, with a groan, to be somewhat full circle from where we began.  Coming upon a gas station, we filled up the tank (for about $1.50), downed some bottles of cold water, enjoyed the relief of removing our butts from the bike seat, then wound our way home, stopping to ask directions (in Indonesian) every so often (then trying to figure out the response).

Thoughts are things, I know, and thoughts create.  My thoughts were rather sweaty and stinky at this point.  Basking is much more fun, and so is the result.

Later I decided to go to a yoga class.  Asher would collect Sofia from school and I would find my way into Ubud.  I'll just hire someone from the neighboring village to drive me the 20 minutes to Ubud, I thought.  It actually took a long time to find someone, then I had to wait for him to eat at the small warung and once we got on the road, with just barely enough time to get to my class, we got caught in a logjam of traffic.  I apologized, got out of the car and walked home, not a happy camper.  Clearly, when in allowance, things just flow.  And clearly, the farther I got out of the vortex, the farther still I moved out of the vortex.

It's a few days later and I have cleaned up my mental act.  I'm surfing again.  In the nick of time I remember that back in Oregon I had signed up for a John Hardy led tour of Green School for this very day, October 20. At the time John was a legend to us, yet a stranger.  Today he is somewhere between an acquaintance and... I'm not sure, but  today he said 'Hello, cupcake," as he gave me a kiss.  Our tour group consisted of myself and Asher, Ciara -- an Irish woman who has been teaching internationally for the past 10 years all over the globe and has just arrived in Bali for 2 months, placing her son in Sofia's class -- and Alixis -- a French Canadian man who runs scuba diving expeditions from yachts in the Maldives.  (The Green School attracts fascinating people and the student body represents 30 different nations and counting. They keep flooding in. Sofia is no longer the new kid in her class; 3 more have arrived after 

us!)  

John is no lover of redundancy.  Every tour is different.  Our tour began at PT Bambu Pure, the newest John Hardy empire.  On a green mission to do right by the planet and his potential grandchildren, John has not only created the Green School but also become a developer of bamboo construction.  The company structure, a bamboo warehouse he said he built for a few thousand dollars, houses stacks of enormous bamboo poles and vats of boron used to treat the bamboo for protection from insects.  Bamboo grows as a grass from a mother root, can mature to full height in 4 years and, once the stalks are cut, the same mother can produce again, and again.  On site were a couple of prototypes of their bamboo yurts; to my eye more beautiful than any other yurt I have seen and outfitted with some spiffy bamboo furnishings.  Each building they construct begins as a miniature model.  Initially they used glue to hold the sticks together, but that doesn't last long in this climate and, realizing the pieces should be archived for the future, now have a remarkably patient and nimble restorer tying each tiny piece together with string. 

We walk down the road to the Green School kitchen.  The multiple story building, bamboo of course, sits high on a hill just a one minute walk from our house.  We are across the river from the school which means the kitchen is across the river from the school.  Every day at lunch women carry all the freshly made food on their heads into the Heart of School building, serving all grades and any visitors at the same time.  The food is wholesome and most of it is grown on the school grounds.  We enter the kitchen through a tunnel at street level.  At work preparing the school lunch is my friend Kadek, who is in charge of the kitchen, and we have our first reunion since my arrival in Bali.  I met Kadek on our last trip to Bali and we had a huge, immediate heart connection.  During the jewelry years Kadek traveled around the world with the Hardys as their chef and at one point they sent her for training in raw food preparation, all unusual for the Balinese who rarely leave their island and don't eat much raw food.  The original concept for the kitchen is that it would also be a restaurant; each level was to be a different style of seating, earthy on the bottom level, posh tablecloths on the top and something in between on the middle floor.  Right now the kitchen is... a kitchen, and also a repository of various experiments with bamboo furniture design.  Most Balinese home kitchens are smoky little rooms with wood fires or ranges burning gas, but the Green School kitchen is airy, open and burns bamboo saw dust, a byproduct of the construction.  (That is also how they heat the water for our houses in the Bambu Village.) On the way out we sample fresh long beans (really long green beans) from the kitchen gardens.

After the kitchen tour we head out on motorbikes down the road a bit -- John's brightly painted three wheel motorcycle (that's 2 in front for greater contact with the road) turning many a head in the little Balinese village --  and across the river to the latest construction site: 18 luxury houses made entirely of bamboo, starting price $350,000 U.S. in cash. (That is still  a pretty penny here in Bali, but part of the gentrification boom I have mixed feelings about at the moment.  Bigger, more expensive structures are going up everywhere, most of them not green.  I can't blame anyone... I'd like to create something, too! ) The first three houses are currently under construction, all with a  view of the jungle ravine, all with sweeping roofs and organic curves built into the side of the hill.  Years ago I had a dream of building a curving bamboo house in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.  I am not sure I want to live in a bamboo house forever, but after the tour, in the middle of the night, I dream of a large bamboo structure on the land we are interested in as our retreat center way out in remote Tabanan, little bamboo yurts dotting the property.

Throughout the tour, in the midst of his entertaining, informative, opinionated and lively dialog, I notice John glancing or even staring at my neck.  A couple of times he interrupts himself saying, "That is a beautiful necklace."  Being in the jewelry business a long time and always wearing my creations, I am used to this, yet receiving such a comment from one of the most successful contemporary jewelry designers feels like a significant compliment.  We end the tour at the Green School warung where we sip ginger fizzes and fresh young coconut water.  At one point John takes my hand and examines my ring.  He asks if I still have workers,  says he likes what I do, and perhaps I could make something for him.  Yes, of course, I would be thrilled.  

Even if we never discuss it again, I will bask in this appreciation.  Just thinking about it now, I'm riding the wave a little longer and the radiance feels good.