I can’t believe I’m leaving for Bali in less than a week, but the piles on my office floor, my plane ticket from San Francisco to Taipei to Denpasar, and the stack of little lined notebooks I’m bringing as welcome gifts for my writing students are all proof that this trip is really about to happen. At this time next week, I’ll be on the other side of the world, recovering from jetlag on a huge multicolored couch by an infinity pool at the Lotus Bungalows in Candidasa, Bali.
This will be the tenth time I’ve taken writers to Bali for a deep immersive experience of the culture, wild beauty, and spiritual life of that sacred island.
Getting ready for this year’s trip has been surreal. Surreal is a word I’ve been using a lot lately to describe my life.
This summer, as I’ve been witnessing the totalitarian takeover of my country and the emergence of a taxpayer-funded gestapo to stifle dissent, terrorize brown people, kidnap immigrants, and put them in concentration camps, I’ve been simultaneously savoring our daughter’s visit from Egypt and celebrating my birthday with all three of our kids (a rare occurrence; Karyn and I live in California; they live in Egypt, Boston, and Mexico), and slowly checking items off a master to-do list before I leave to teach in Bali.
Here are just a few of the hundred+ items on my list:
- Finalize Whatsapp group for participants
- Print and laminate small Indonesian-English translation cards
- Print on-the-ground itinerary
- Make name tags for my students for our outdoor classroom in Candidasa
- Pack my old computer mouse in case the track pad on my laptop fails due to humidity
- Download Google map of Bali in offline maps
- Get a Holafly e-sim card for Indonesia
- Pack my sarong and temple sash for blessings with priests and temple ceremonies
- Photocopy passport, credit cards, and plane tickets
- Bring my prescription diving mask
- Bring four crisp $100 bills that I can convert to Indonesian rupiah
- Transfer necessities to my travel wallet: my driver’s license, a debit card, my business credit card, my Neptune Society cremation card in case I die and my body needs to be shipped back to California
- Review and back up my writing curriculum in the Cloud
- Pack 5-day antibiotic, acidophilus, Benadryl, electrolytes, insect repellent, Imodium, Ativan for jetlag, a rubber sink stopper, a stain remover stick, a portable washing machine called a Scrubba, dry sheets of laundry soap, two lip balms, two Covid tests, some masks, my vitamins, and my thyroid medication
- Set a vacation message on my email and phone for the 26 days I’ll be gone
As I check things off my list and get closer to my departure date, I keep returning to that word: surreal. How can I can possibly be leaving the country now of all times?
But leading writing retreats is what I do. Creating safe, intimate communities where people can tell their stories is how I serve. It’s how I earn a living.
Thirteen people have bought plane tickets to follow me to Bali. I’m going early to get things set up for them.
This is the way things are right now.
