Laura’s Blog

Exploring Sideman

August 4, 2025 On the tour I led in Bali last year, one of my students spent time in Sideman and loved it. When she saw on Facebook that I was going, she texted me the name of a local guide she loved, Gede Darya, so I wrote to him on Whatsapp and hired him […]

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Early Morning Market

August 3, 2025 At 5 AM, in the dark, I hopped on the back of Toto’s scooter, and we took off to the village of Bungaya, Bali to watch the morning market unfold. When we got there, men and women were arriving on motorcycles and on foot, heads stacked high with goods to sell. As

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First Full Day in Bali

August 2, 2025 I landed in Candidasa, Bali last night and am spending my first two nights at The Lotus Bungalows, a place I’m very familiar with. It’s the first hotel my writers will stay in when they fly in nine days from now. I decided to stay here my first two nights to get

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Will She Make It or Won’t She?

I’m writing this next installment of my companionship saga at the San Francisco airport. My daughter dropped me off here an hour ago. I whizzed through check-in and security and am currently waiting for my first flight, a 12-hour overnight flight to Taipei. The fact that I’m flying to Asia tonight is just starting to

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The Story of Yes

“If you travel far enough, one day you will recognize yourself coming down the road to meet yourself. And you will say—YES.” —Marion Woodman Tell me about a time you said yes to yourself.

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Kinds of Silence

“Writing is a struggle against silence.” —Carlos Fuentes Tell me about all the different kinds of silence you have known. Start each paragraph with the words, “There is the kind of silence…”.

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Word Nerds Unite: Words I Love

“One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.” —Hart Crane Over the next week, compile a list of ten-twenty of your favorite words. You can love them because of their sound, their resonance, their meaning, their specificity—or for

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Walking into Mystery

“It only takes a reminder to breathe, a moment to be still, and just like that, something in me settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper and I remember again that life isn’t a relay race; that we will all cross the finish line; that waking up

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