土匪窝

那天下午前一个多月没有下雨。 预计整天都会下雨。 随着我们越来越高，乌云密布，我们的头顶越来越高，风越来越冷，天空越来越暗。 我记得过去几年中因在该地点附近的拟议中的沃尔玛而爆发的抗议活动的故事。 沃尔玛（Wal Mart）与以黄色为笑脸的“快乐的面孔降价”商业特征与用于心脏牺牲的仪式祭祀用刀片的阿兹台克人化身的对比似乎是适当的。

我们都到达了顶端，并欣赏了美景。 两只蝴蝶在金字塔的顶点拍打着飞舞。 我用蓝色毯子快速旋转了几圈，像巨大的羽毛翅膀一样铺开了。 迈克（Mike）和迭戈（Diego）讨论了让牧师监督城市下面所有事物的样子。 在牺牲马拉松比赛中，必须流下台阶的大量血液才能渗入土壤。 从我们的上升中短暂地获得了宁静的胜利，然后是雷声般的响亮。 啪啪啪 ！ 阵阵阵阵阵阵寒风，然后是细雨绵绵的细雨，接着是高杯的高脚杯掉落着我们的衬衫。 我们都挤在金字塔中心附近。 我脱下了传统的蓝色装饰的毯子，将其用作屋顶，站在整个团队上方。 我们在洗澡时大喊大笑。 那是一场倾盆大雨，就像有人打开水龙头快速冲洗掉一些蔬菜一样，然后一切都结束了。

在我们的右边是月亮神庙。 在我们的左边，是奎萨尔科特尔神庙。 我想到了他2012年预言的回归以及世界毁灭的传说。 新时代的炒作已经开始达到高潮。 玛雅历法引起了很多猜测。 几天后，Phil会在万圣节那天，通过塔哥街摊位的一位友善赞助人，在La Condessa中发现一些Grateful Dead LSD标签。 跳舞的头骨和花朵的图像似乎直接取自古代墨西哥和亡灵节庆祝活动的图标。

乐队离开后的几个星期，我决定在周日下午漫步在Chapultepec公园，然后穿过Polanco观看有关“世界末日”的电影“ 2012”。

半小时后，我退出了，完全铺着地板，仍在嚼着一块口香糖，现在已经像我的脑子一样粉碎了。 我叫了一辆小型的大众甲壳虫出租车，然后我们沿着大厦的山丘向着库吉马尔帕（Cuajimalpa）滑行，经过了所有外交官的房屋和大树。

世界末日的景象在我的酸意中循环。 有中国和印度在烧煤。 雨林和荒漠化。 上升的海洋和飓风桑迪袭击纽约市。 全世界就像西班牙桥下的非洲人一样，成为难民的一长串。 夏季，纽约灌木丛的热量使马赫菌肿胀，几乎散失。 我的朋友用机关枪在恰帕斯州Zapatista村的故事，告诉我他如何穿越沙漠穿越美国，然后在美化工作时睡在佛罗里达的水泥地板上。 墨西哥不可避免的酷热将其变成沙漠。

我们被水女神Chalchiuhtlicue洗礼，从洗礼中跌落下来。

在地面上，卖给他们的商品的供应商向我们表示欢迎。 一位老妇人指着寺庙的顶部，说我们看起来像只小鸟，在下雨时都挤在一起。

我们乘公共汽车返回市区，并用小提琴为一些公共汽车乘客播放了歌曲。 在“亡灵节”活动中，我们在墨西哥城市区附近走来走去。 头骨，卡特里娜飓风和穆尔特山脉不断掠过我们。 我们在占据阿拉米达公园（Parque Alameda）的高跷上混合了僵尸和巨型纸paper生物的游行队伍。 我们探索了埃索卡洛（El Zocalo），并带着悲伤而茂盛的墨西哥流浪乐队结束了加里波第广场（Plaza Garibaldi）。 Marco在我们那堆乐器盒上睡着了； 我们买了瓶龙舌兰酒，并与墨西哥流浪乐队，班达乐队和Norteno剧团进行了很多音乐表演。

我们继续在黑暗中穿过历史悠久的地区，转过一个弯，然后在另一场游行中被扫地而过，这一游行中有一群鼓手，大号风琴手和小号明亮清脆。 深低音的声音在我们的胸腔中发出深深的波纹管共鸣。 人群在庆祝中旋转和旋转，穿着万圣节服装跳舞。 一个巨大的纸质骷髅雕像抬起帽子，点了点头。

您的生活应该包括一些附带的调情。 不过，返回降落可能有些坎bump。 在内部长期反抗社会之后重新进入社会，可能是一个艰难的过程。 我记得克里希那穆提（Krishnamurti）的一句名言说：“对一个重病的社会进行适当的调整是没有道理的。”

我记得瓦伦西亚和拉斯法利亚斯的圣女广场。

“ Sonafabitch！”

我诅咒自己。

大型红色烟花和银色Zippo像一架纸飞机一样，在瓦伦西亚西班牙广场上航行。

在发呆的时候，我点燃了烟火，像飞盘一样鞭打它，失去了对我握在同一只手中的Zippo的控制。 炸药和炸药齐头并进地飞过棕榈树和大理石人行道，在玫瑰的花坛上互相撞击，着陆。

灯芯向微型炸药棒内部燃烧时发出嘶嘶声。

我向前倾斜，弯下腰找回我的Zippo。

KA-BOOM！

爆炸震耳欲聋。 我握紧手向后扭动，内耳损伤后的高音锐度响起。 我在最后一分钟将手向后拉，几乎避免了我的右手和手指之间离婚的灾难。

瓦伦西亚（Valencia）为期四天的拉斯法拉斯（Las Fallas）音乐节以其烟火和巨型燃烧的纸paper艺术装置引起了人们的关注。 在缺乏睡眠，消耗和推It之间，任务变得越来越困难。 补充水的需求量很大。 绝望地抽烟。 The splitting headache, a constant companion.

And yet, setting off more fireworks that Sunday morning seemed the most appropriate decision at the time, all things considered.

Thousands of festive Spaniards and travelers had poured into the historic Gothic quarter of Valencia to celebrate Las Fallas. The festival celebrated the return of Spring and the awakening of Earth after the winter cold. Birds chirped, tiny precious colored flowers bloomed, the smell of muddy damp grassy aromas were everywhere.

The Gothic quarter had turned into some scene from another time, the ghosts of medieval knights and Moors mixing with the revelers on the streets.

It stunk of beer and urine. But also the bouquets of flowers

An infamous type of firework called a “boracho” or a Drunk was set off during the street parties.

When it was lighted, the borracho would spin around and hiss like a snake, rising in the air on its own self propultion. Everyone knew not to run when around them as the boracho would move in the direction of air currents and stick to the person, spinning up and around their body, burning through their clothing.

The sound of the borachos wrought instant terror and fear.

Ssssssszzzzzzziiiiiiiiiippppp!

“Christ on a stick! Don’t move!” Mike screamed as he ran down the street. Another group of young men had set off a half dozen borachos and thrown them towards the crowd of hundreds. Everyone scattered and sure to their nature, the borachos followed them, white hot sparks spraying out against the purple midnight sky, spinning and spitting against the wall of frightened, laughing humanity.

There was chaos around every corner. The constant punctuating detonation of miniature sticks of dynamite became the off tempo rhythm, day in and day out. Men lighting them carelessly with their cigarettes, adolescent girls throwing them and screaming, old men teaching grandchildren how to handle them with care and respect.

Entire streets closed off for paella cooking competitions. Small groups of families and friends huddled around open bonfires on the asphalt street with giant paella pans simmering away, the smoke mixing in the air.

There were empty bottles of liquor sitting on street curbs, empty cups everywhere, and endless overflowing garbage baskets. Young men passed out in doorways, sleeping hunched over on benches. Hot headed couples yelling at one another, crying and walking away, waving their hands excitedly in the air while screaming into a cell phone.

Women danced and sang with one another, holding bottles of Coca-Cola filled with alcohol, smoking hashish and cigarettes, saluting one another with bottles of beer, hugging. Men threw their arms around one another’s shoulders, standing in solidarity in the face of such wild festive abandon.

Friends lost one another in the crowds, made new ones, scrambled through to reunite, gave up, sat down and cried, drank, quit, found their friends again, stumbled then dropped and cracked their phones.

The fireworks sounded like bombs and gunshots at times. I thought of Iraq and the insanity of it all.

— —

Mensagem de Amor

It was a humid night in Ubud, Bali. The monkeys were sleeping in the tall trees. Restaurants were full of vacationers, some young and some old, all sitting at candle light dinners. Some looked in love, others looked away. White crisp bleached table clothes and mahogany wood chairs filled the restaurants. The waiters served food and smiled.

Thick green moist vegetation covered everything. Giant palms, slowly rocked in the breeze. Small sticks of incense burned on the ground, left by the Balinese women as the daily offerings. People closed up their stores. Some sat on the steps, watching the world go by. The taxi drivers shouted at tourists, “Taxi?!” and the tourists walked by, pretending not to notice.

Stray dogs wandered down the street, panting and looking for action. A cat quickly ran across the road and into a secret ally. Scooters drove along, a car beeped, and a slow walking pedestrian slowly glides past. A few Balinese women walked around with baskets balancing on their heads, full of souvenir gifts. A woman with her barefoot children, all dirty faced, begged for money. An older retired couple from Australia, walked past holding hands, returning to their hotel room looking tired.

Taiwanese tour groups, French families with young teenagers in big funny tourists hats, and newly wed Spanish couples sneaking kisses walked together along the sidewalk. Hippies with dreadlocks and large backpacks pointed at maps, looked around in open-mouthed bewilderment. Western loner South East Asian tourists in sunglasses on their night lurches loitered outside the convenient stores. Surfer bros from the beaches of the southern island drink Bingtang beer from big green bottles. Endless lines of Western women carried yoga mats, leaving studios and heading to and fro. It was a varied tourist crowd. Some taxi drivers sat on plant beds, holding small cardboard signs that read “Taxi” and waved them to anyone who walked past; they looked exhausted.

I was walking down Monkey Forest Road with my good friend Tom. The street was lined with stores and gift shops. It was late, but the stores were still open, some of them closing soon.

Tom entered a booth to use an ATM. I squatted on the sidewalk wearing my black Chinese slippers and took a big mango from my plastic bag of fresh mangos, my midnight-snack. I ate it with my bare hands, making a big mess. Then found a woman selling small bananas, bought a few and ate them while waiting for Tom.

A Balinese man yelled at me, “Taxi!” I shook my head ‘No thank you,’ and kept walking.

Tom exited the ATM with his money and we continued walking very slowly up Monkey Forest Road. 它是热的。 I pushed my bicycle along the road while balancing on the sidewalk.

Tom was experimenting in traveling with as few possessions as possible: two shirts, two pairs of shorts, a pair of sandals, a bag, a yoga mat, some books, and a few bathroom supplies. This was a spiritual kind of experiment; what is important? What do you really need to make you happy? What do you really need to survive? He washed his clothes in the sink of his bungalow and air-dries themed as needed. Recently, one of his two shirts had ripped and needed to be replaced. This was the reason for the late night expedition into the shopping street of sleepy Ubud.

It was important to find the right shirt since he only had two. This required extensive field research. This required discussion about what is important in life, what does one need to survive, what does one need to make one happy. Simplicity. Balance. Contentment.

We talked about spirituality and traveling while entering and exiting the tourist stores. The Balinese girls sat behind the counters and texted on their cell phones. When we entered they would say ‘Hello…’ in their sleepy way.

Ubud is a yawning place place at times. The air comes down off of the highlands and slows everything down. Time stretches itself out like a cat. Eyes blink slowly like butterfly wings, warming in the sun.

The smoke from the incense on the ground swirls around you like elongated strings of purple-white cigar smoke, smelling sweet and heady.

We continued looking at the shirts and going into the different stores as we methodically moved slowly up the road, going one by one to each store. Some were boutiques and some were tourist stores with cheap gifts. Tom was not impressed. The Balinese girls in the stores were polite and had seen too many tourists for the day; they were ready to go home and go to sleep, to get up and do the same thing again the next day.

It was an unusual activity for a Tuesday night: two yogis searching for a shirt on the tourist side of town. But anything was better than staying inside and melting with the heat.

We eventually came upon a store that was different then the rest; it was colorful, brightly lit, filled with antique Balinese furniture and pictures of Paris. The Balinese girls in there were happy and slightly manically energized; they were listening to Brazilian samba very loudly and in another world chatting and spinning around the room to keep themselves occupied. The store was air-conditioned which felt like a cool glass of ice water pressed against a hot neck. There were racks and racks of colorful shirts.

“We’ve hit gold!” Tom exclaimed.

The girls immediately insisted that he try on everything in the store to which he unreservedly agreed. While the two girls attended to David, I took a break and sat on a big green chair to read big colorful books about Balinese architecture and vacation homes: deep turquoise swimming pools, mahogany frame homes, white, blue, green, beige colored tiled floors, palm leaf thatched roofs.

The shop felt different, like an old warm café. Sweet samba played in the background. The Balinese girls made themselves laugh while trying to dress Tom. They went crazy finding absurd shirts for him to wear. He became their foreign doll and they kept pushing him back into the fitting room to put on everything they brought him. He had been joyfully kidnapped.

The samba became more festive and I decided get up and dance a few very bad samba steps with myself; the Balinese girls started laughing even harder from embarrassment, covering their eyes and their mouths, and crying. This caused more dancing. Tom burst from the fitting room wearing a strange jacket, flower shirt, and ridiculous pants and a fedora. He looked like a Charlie Chaplin clown and joined the improvised dance party. We all laughed and laughed. People walking past in the street begin to stop and stare into the strange scene happening in the small store with the rows and rows of bright colored shirts, the dancing Charlie Chaplin man, the dancing mango eating Chinese-slipper wearing man, and the two hysterical Balinese women.

The music changed and the dancing stopped; we caught our breaths from laughing, and collected ourselves. Tom selected a final few shirts and began to try them on with the advice from the Balinese girls. The crowds outside went away. The mood felt happy and light in the store. I stood smiling and enjoyed the atmosphere.

Suddenly, a song came on which changed the entire space. I became frozen. The room settled into a stillness, a strange juxtaposition from the intense dancing and laughing of only a few moments before. David and the girls continued on with the shirt business, unaffected by the new music.

The song was like a visiting spirit, haunting and ethereal, intense and delicate. It felt like a sweet lullaby that mumbles from the mouth of a lover. My spine felt strange and the roomed swayed. A wave of emotion over took me. My smile slowly slipped away, my mind felt blank, numb. I stared into space.

Ana and Brazil flashed in my mind. I sat heavily back into the chair. The turquoise pool on the cover of a book resembled the ocean of Rio de Janeiro, the palm trees in the pictures on the books mixed with the memories of Ana and Mexico: the late night bus ride leaving the beaches of Puerto Escondido and the early morning goodbye in the busy Chapultapec subway station the following morning. That hazy first goodbye that would mark the passage of a four year journey with each of us on opposite sides of the planet, all ending one warm Autumn day in a Brooklyn park on a green bench with little gold leafs falling on our head.

I felt the passage of time in my bones: the distance, the longing, and the sweet sting of saudade . My mind felt carried along in the song like being on a wooden canoe flowing down a deep river.

The hot Bali night with the incense sticks and the sleeping monkeys in the giant trees silently observed this most unexpected dream-moment with the song that descended from far away. While Tom and the girls continued to laugh and joke around, I felt far away. Unable to do much else but listen, I saw it all again…

She was sitting on a chair, typing on the computer. Her eyes focused on the screen, leaning into it. I laid on the bed and nudged her chair with my foot:

“Hey!” she said, startled.

She jumped onto the bed and smirked.

“What do you wanna do today?”

“Mmm, let’s go eat something.”

“You always wanna eat!”

“I’m always hungry!”

“Ahaha! Ok, let’s go eat.”

We kissed, long and deep.

The French have a saying that lovers can live on kisses and cool water. And it’s true, you have a sense of nourishment from one another: satisfied, full, and energized. Finally though, we had to stop ourselves and begin gathering enough strength to leave the room for a few hours to engage with the real world.

Outside on the street the breeze from the ocean touched our bodies. We breathed deeply.

It was dusk on New Years Eve in Rio de Janeiro. The sound of waves and the salty smell of the sea filled the air.

Everywhere was magic.

Tom looked over at me from across the store and asked, “Hey man, are you OK?”

I squinted my eyes and looked out at the Balinese street and remembered when she had taught me the word saudade.

“ You know that feeling of sweet-pain?” Ana asked, “When sometimes, you miss the person, or the time or a certain moment? It’s like feeling sad to miss the happy, or sometimes happy to miss the sad; there’s a feeling of presence in the absence.”

I flashed back to walking up the steps of Monte Alban with Mike, Phil, and Marco to visit the ancient mountain top pyramid city complex in Oaxaca. There, sitting under a pine tree on a sandstone wall, was the first time I saw Ana. She was sitting with the same two Israeli backpackers who had been on our bus from Mexico City the previous day.

Several days later I was walking on a brilliantly bright endless hot desolate stretch of beach in Puerto Escondido where I saw Ana again. Giant waves pounded down, the roar of the foamy sea and the merciless sun tanned the skin. I had sat on a hammock all afternoon in a beach bar when a powerful notion came to mind, “Go for a walk, that way .”

I walked and walked for about 30 minutes when I came upon a beach hut that Mike, Marco, Phil and I had stumbled upon the night before. There in the sweaty dance party on the beach, I ran into a friend who I hadn’t known was backpacking in the same area. It was a very weird syncronicity that fortold the peculiar series of events that had already begun:

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

I sat at the beach hut for a few moments remembering the night before, it was quiet except for a sleepy looking waiter in the empty space. I turned around and began to walk back to my friends.

Alone on the beach I came to a long curved section and in the distance, a solitary figure was approaching. As we approached one another, we remained the only two people and as her face became clearer, I recognized that it has Ana again, the girl from Brazil on Monte Alban.

We stopped in the sand and laughed saying what a strange coincidence it was to run into one another once again. We made vague plans about taking a boat to see another beach and parted ways.

That night our entourage had to leave on an overnight 12 hour bus ride back to Mexico City. We arrived late to the bus station and I was lucky enough to get the last ticket. The bus engine was running and it was packed. I boarded last and scuffled my way along the aisle, trying to peek ahead over shoulders to find an empty seat.

There, in the back of the bus with the last open seat, was Ana, smiling brightly.

She cleared her bags. I asked her if I could sit next to her and we settled in for the long ride.

For some odd reason, I have always found old buses to be uniquely romantic places. Not always in the love sense of romantic, but romantic in the way that they are filled with snippets of life.

It usually goes like this:

Sometimes very late at night while sitting on a bus, usually in the back, or the middle window seat, when it’s dark, I think and observe.

All of the people who got on a few hours before are by now usually sound asleep.

All of the people who were so full of life and worry and excitement or sadness or whatever else they brought along for the trip boarded the bus, searched for their seats, put their belongings away with such care and hurried tenderness, then settled in, looked around, fidgeted, texted, waited to leave. They all slowly become quiet and, then, fall asleep one by one as the bus moans along.

The silence on the bus is peaceful. I sit awake usually, alone and I listen, look over from the back of the bus at their heads tilted to the side as they sleep.

I look out the window, alone, at the highway paint stripes sliding along like an endless dragon snake. I think about things, about other times in other places, countries, states, deserts, where I’ve done the same thing only with different people, and how long it’s been, and how much further there is to go, and how it all never really stops, it just keeps moving.

We’re all sleeping on that bus, trusting the driver to take us where we need to go. We trust the driver so much that we fall asleep like babies, with all the dangers of the road, we let it all go and lean against the window and sleep. We lean on our loved ones, we lay our heads on each other’s laps, like children, and sleep.

My eyes become wide and I feel my thoughts become strangely hypnotized by the humming, vibration of the engine, the slow rocking of the bus, the smell of the breeze coming from an open window…

The smell of the mesquite and earth while approaching southern Pacific Mexican beaches at midnight.

The smell of dry open desert sand while entering the Sinai at dawn.

The smell of jasmine and olive trees as you pass through Andalusia, headed towards Malaga on the Mediterranean at dusk.

The smell of pine trees and musty leaves as you enter the Hudson River valley in New York during autumn.

The sound of crickets and the smell after it rains in northern China during the summer.

The memory of a romance, the longing for familiar faces, the distance from home: these can be the ghosts in the lonely bus at night.

Ana and I sat next to one another and found something in the darkness through our music and conversation that made my weary traveler soul light up with life.

We spent the night talking and talking.

Twenty four hours later, we would be saying good bye at the entrance of the Chapultapec metro station in Mexico City at 7:30AM after staying up all night again, dazzed with the kind of buzz when you know something special has happened. She had to catch a flight home to Brazil. We had spent the entire night awake, wandering through La Condessa and Roma, sitting on green park benches, soulfully and physically enraptured.

I was completley dazzed by her; it would be three years before we saw one another again.

As much as I had tried to forget those peculiarly perfectly timed encounters on the Oaxaca mountaintop, the beach, the bus and our night on the green park benches in order to deal with the reality of a tunnel cave in and our Earthly distance, I couldn’t. She had left such an indelible impact that in the Ubud store in Ubud, with the song, it all came back in a giant wave.

I remembered saying goodbye in Brazil after visiting for the first time in three years.

We were sitting in a row of seats at a busy boarding gate in the airport. The security guards were standing around and helping people place their luggage on the x-ray machines.

A Grandma and her family were sitting across from us. The family kept getting up to wander around, go to the magazine store, buy soda and candy. The Grandma stayed in her seat, looking serenely and royally out onto the world.

An announcement came over the loud speaker in Portuguese.

Ana listened to it and from her expression, I could tell that it was time for me to board the plane.

It was now very real. Time had run out. It was ending.

We reached out and hugged each other.

“What are you going to do today?” I asked her.

“You mean after all of this? I’m going home and sleeping for a month.”

“Yea, that sounds like a good idea. I know you’re going to miss my snoring,” I teased her.

“Yea, I know you’re going to miss me stealing all of the sheets in bed,” she teased back.

“I’m going to tell everyone that you are a sheet-thief.”

“I’m going to tell everyone that you are the loudest snoring person on la planeta. ”

We both laughed softly, wiping away the new tears from each other’s eyes and tried to smile. We rubbed our thumbs against the inside of the other’s hand.

One of the boys from the family of five with the Grandma ran past us in line, carrying a bottle of soda. The young boy’s older sister attempted to take away the newly purchased bottle from him, but the boy held tightly on to it and a fight began. Cries and angry shouts erupted. Mother and Father interceded and prepared the family for lining up at the security checkpoint.

“I’m giving you the book,” she told me, “it’s your turn to write in it.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out the small red and black notebook from China. We each had written passages in it, exchanging it through the mail during the previous years from across the globe. It was our shared thoughts, our journal, our story.

A book full of dried flowers pressed between the pages and full of words written on crispy brown paper.

“谢谢。 I’m gonna write you something good.”

“You better, mister.”

“Oh, I will.”

我们笑了。 Then looked at each other again filled with tears: in its final moments, the heart reveals all at the airport.

The announcement system interrupted over the speakers.

“好。 I think it’s time.”

“Let’s go over there.”

We walked towards the security checkpoint and entered the line.

The family had already joined the line ahead of us. The young children were running around madly in circles, drinking soda, spinning in the same place with their arms spread out, then trying to walk straight while laughing in their dizziness. The Grandma stood in her peaceful silence, slightly smiling at the grandkids with her white purse slung over one shoulder and holding the bag of magazines and candy in the other hand. Mother and Father searched in their bags for the tickets and passports.

The security guards chewed gum and chatted idly with one another, wearing their navy blue blazers, name-tags, and black radios on their hips. The women with their hair pulled tightly back, the men with their hair slicked back or spiked. It was just another work day for them, waiting for their lunch break, and for free time to stare at cell phones.

The other passengers began to move through the metal detectors and place their belongings onto the x-ray machine.

We realized that the line was going to advance much faster than we had hoped; we grabbed for the other’s hand, instinctively.

In a blur, the Father of the family was the last to pass through the metal detector in front of us.

People were standing behind us in line, clasping their tickets and looking impatient.

It all felt too rushed, much too fast. Like it always will.

I took a deep breath to slow it down for a moment.

“Hey, come here.”

We reached around one another’s torso.

“Now I’m gonna miss you all over again.”

She raised her mouth up close, “I’m gonna miss you too . ”

Back in the Balinese store, the song ended and a new samba started to play. Tom and the girls had selected a shirt and were cashing out at the register.

I had to rub my face and stood up out of the green chair, taking a deep breath. I felt like I had had an out-of-body experience. Tom purchased a shirt and we left the store with a new festive samba playing in the background while the Balinese girls smiled brightly and waved goodbye.

We walked down the street towards the Monkey Forest, talking about the experience in the store with the dancing, the song, and the frenzy of shirt sampling.

We said goodbye and went our separate ways back to our bungalows, preparing for the next morning of early morning yoga practice and life on the island of the Gods.

I rode my bicycle onto the path that entered the Monkey Forest to return home under the gigantic trees. The slender vines dropped down from the branches and hit me in the face. I peddled through the darkness, thinking of the ghost stories that the local Balinese had told me: about the ghosts and evil spirits roaming around in the Forest, looking for people to eat.

I finally exited the jungle abod and entered my village. Everyone was asleep in their small houses. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. The insects buzzed and hummed. A stray dog slept on the street, curled up in a small ball. The decorated bamboo penjors swayed in the light breeze. The streetlights were golden and hazy.

I rode my bike but my legs felt heavy. I looked up at the stars, at the silent green plants. The small yellow flowers silently parachuting down from the tops of trees to lie on the damp earth and die. I imagined that the Balinese have stories for this as well, perhaps every time someone dies, a flower falls; or perhaps every time someone is born, a flower falls.

I remembered Ana and the song from the store. She felt so strangely near, like a warm hand resting on my chest, whispering a message of saudade on the sweet breeze from across the rice paddies and the Bali sea.

When you go hiking in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, there are thistles that stick to your legs as you brush up against bushes. You can walk and walk all day and not notice them sometimes. When you finally sit down and take a moment, you will then see all of the things that have attached themselves to you. Traveling for years is exactly like that; you don’t always see what has stuck to you when you get back home. Or for that matter, what you may have left behind. But it all eventually starts to come out after awhile: at dinner parties, in grocery stores, in the way you purchase a bottle of juice from a corner store. There’s a rememberance that anything can happen, that even mundane tasks can be exhilarating if approached as an adventure. Life becomes filled with images on the walls inside the memory tunnel of our minds.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”