when i first came to bali, i fell in love with the jungle/forest nature. i would just walk down narrow dirt paths and suddenly arrive at peoples doorsteps. doorsteps to their little thatch houses in the middle of the forest....and i just loved it and thought, how can i live like this too? it was like being in a fairy tale. huge trees, little winding streams next to the narrow dirt paths, chickens roaming free, beautiful milk chocolate colored beautifully cared for cows in covered thatch pens,guard dogs barking at me. i knew that i would need a real toilet and running water and electricity to recharge my laptop....so living like that was not an option.
what i discovered was that i can live in a beautiful balinese villa with the sea in front of me and the forest behind me and i can walk through that forest everyday. when my landlord told me that they finished the new road through the forest so there will be easier access to the house, i was not sure if that was what excited me. and when i drove on the new road i was sorry that so many trees had been felled in order to make it, and that this is just one more step of urbanizing and modernizing the last authentic areas. the first day or two i walked along the new road, not really thrilled, since it was sunny and dusty and too big for my romantic tendencies. but what can i do, that's the road and i have to accept progress and reality. i can't stop the clock.
but suddenly my landlord zoomed me off on the back of his motorbike down an alternate path, winding, narrow, up and down little humps amongst my beloved little thatch houses and even with flowing water alongside the path. i couldn't believe that i have this as an option too! i don't have to walk on the new road. and my whole experience changed entirely.
now i walk under the shade of mango, banana, coconut and rambutan trees. the sun glimmers through but no heat is felt. it begins with the sea on one side and the forest on the other, and then as i turn in the direction of the village i enter the forest and pass by all those little thatch houses i love, and sometimes even a beautiful balinese house of a farmer, tucked away there too. children walk the path and are happy to say hello in english and talk with a foreigner. motorbikes come through every now and then since that is their main source of transportation. the path is just wide enough for the handle bars to get by. ducks suddenly appear, little chicks with their mother, old women calming down their barking watch dogs that are more afraid of me then i am of them.
the trodden earth beneath my feet is so comforting to walk on. a million shades of green surrounds me, and tree trunks that defy the laws of gravity as they grow sideways or have their entire roots in the air and they are laying on the ground, still alive. suddenly a little house that sells basics for the local people of the forest. everything is neat, orderly, one man is busy chopping wood in a rhythm that surpasses comprehension....how can he keep this beat up for so long and so exact? he is carving coconut tree trunks to be sold for making salt from the sea water. another one is drying palm leaves for building, material, another has 10 workers quietly building the house without any machinery...a father taking care of his baby calls out hello, even though we have never met before. everyone needs to know where i am going. the answer doesn't really matter, just the need to ask where? like how we say, 'hello".
by the time i reach the main road my senses have been filled with impressions that make my heart sing and gratitude for being able to walk this path each day. the main road is lined with little shops and shopkeepers out front, sitting or sweeping or talking and it is all happening right out there, in front, close to each other, cars, motorbikes, trucks, children, pedestrians, priests, soccer players, old women carrying buckets of water on their head, kids yelling to me across the street "hello" and waving their hands, pick-up trucks with gamelon musicians in them going to a ceremony,..temple chanting in the air, fumes, the dividing line on the road is just for general intention, but in reality everyone is accommodating everyone else in some incomprehensible way that always baffles me that it just flows.
the neighborhood in the village is the opposite of the forest. here the houses are all connected in some random fashion, narrow streets with shuttered windows and people are sitting on the pathways, where laughter and communication prevail. tiny kiosks that sell delicious home cooked spicey balinese food in little store fronts in front of their houses, houses and their business being all one complex of little rooms and narrow passageways. people that were strangers to me yesterday, are already acquaintances today as i pass the same way a second day in a row. smiles, laughter, hello's , proud english speakers that are happy to have a chance to speak with a foreigner, others that don't know a word of english but somehow we manage to understand each other perfectly.
my daily walk through the forest to the village fills me with impressions and experiences that can fill a book each day. i return home, to the quiet of the sea, and my house, renewed, refreshed, and grateful for the combination of lifestyles that nourish me and make me feel part of an intimate world.
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