alone

i like being alone...until now it has never felt lonely...it is just being alone...i flow from thing to thing at my own pace, spend most of the day in silence, listen to my inner voice, in short...just enjoy my life.
ever since i remember myself as a child, i was alone. i always had many friends, but my natural state was one of being alone, at home, in nature, in school, outside...so coming to live in bali alone felt quite natural. 

but yesterday, being alone, had a taste of loneliness to it. that surprised me! i had a look at it...what has changed, that suddenly, being alone isn't so much fun anymore? is it because the balinese feel sad for someone who is alone. and they keep asking me if i eat alone, and why i am alone, and am i going there alone, and will i walk back alone? they do everything together. and today, when i woke up, again realizing that i am alone, and how do i feel about it, and i saw that i have a sadness inside connected with being alone, i suddenly understood the balinese. i doubt whether any of the population is taking prozac for mild depression. they just sit and pass the time with someone...nothing deep, nothing special, just hanging out. 

and the constant ceremonies keep everyone in the community in touch and in service, so no time to dabble in self pity or philosophical questions about the meaning of life. everybody sleeps together with other family members, and lives with extended family as part of their daily lifestyle. and then their neighbors and them have the neighborhood temple which they also keep up so they have their clan. 
and me...i'm just a tag along here. enjoying all of what bali has to offer, and together with that, at the mercy of the locals inviting me to participate in their lives and ceremonies.

i see that i am so enmeshed in the balinese life here, that i too am beginning to take it all for granted, like them. they ask me why i want to live here, in this village...and i say because the people are friendly, and smiling and nice, and the sea, and the temples, and playing with the women in the gamelon orchestra, and the trees and nature...they don't know anything else...this is their reality, it is not a country where people go on vacations or travel abroad. everyone pretty much stays put, sometimes as young adults going to the big city to make some money, and then returning to the village again to build their home.

so while i was alone, i felt God with me all the time, in everything and in everyway. i was bursting at the seams with gratitude. i couldn't believe that such abundance and beauty and bestowal is possible. everything oozed reverence. but after a week of being alone most of the time, no other tourists around, no balinese hooping with me on the beach, no volunteering with children, no festivals, no gamelon rehearsals, no longer living in the family compound with my landlord, no longer meeting my friends everyday who were watching their new house being built....i started to feel lonely. 

suddenly everything around me became "ordinary". the sunrise over the sea, the tall coconut trees, the flower laden frangipani trees, the nice breeze, the blue sky and sunshine, the peace and quiet, the sound of the waves, my old friend, "existential angst" began to keep me company...i knew it was a trick...but still saw myself sinking...don't believe it! but what else is there to believe in? and the inevitable question "why am i alive?" returned...even here is paradise...

i knew there was a "key" that i once had, that i could use in situations like this...but where is it? hmm...what am i supposed to be learning from this, that always, afterwards, once it has passed, i regret not remembering what a great opportunity it could have been if i just would have remembered....what was it?! so i was still going through the motions; making the offerings, saying my prayers, but the glow was gone. so i decided that the only one i can ask is God....so i did...and the answer i got was: "we're playing hide and go seek. i have just enlarged the borders of where we are playing. one two three GO!"

so, i am sitting here, looking out past the dry river bed to the sea, underneath the huge trees, next to the small temple of the guesthouse, wondering where to start searching for God this time...and a voice said to my mind "just imagine you are on some island in the south pacific somewhere, with palm trees, and beautiful singing birds, and the quiet rhythm of the waves lapping on the shore, and the chanting in the distant background, on a beautiful sunny afternoon..." and suddenly my eyesight changed and everything became magical again!  I wasn't lonely.