Before I went to bed last night, I decided to email Dr. Wayan and invite her to be a part of the online Roadmap community since she’s so enthusiastic about writing. This is what I sent her:

Dear Dr. Wayan, It was such a pleasure to meet you. I felt so cared for and also, I loved your spirit and your energy—and your smile. You were so warm and welcoming. I send out by email writing prompts (suggestions for writing) every week, and there’s an online community where people can post their writing if they like. In any case, I thought you might enjoy the writing prompts. If you want to get them every Tuesday morning (might be Wednesday morning in Bali), all you have to do is sign up in the top right corner. It’s all free. Here’s the link: [Continue Reading]

I woke up at 5:30 and came out to the endless couch to watch the sky grow light over the Indian Ocean. Tomorrow morning there will be sixteen jetlagged travelers getting up at all kinds of strange early hours, getting their first glimpse of these magnificent surroundings. Most of them will be arriving long after dark so they won’t see anything on their drive from the airport to the hotel. As I sat there listening to the small waves touch down on the beach, one upon another, I found myself missing my son, Eli, who’s twenty, and thinking about the close family bonds the Balinese people have. Here, you stay integrally connected to your family; you live with your extended family. Children honor, support and care for their parents; it’s the way family is woven. People here are shocked I’m ... [Continue Reading]

After a lonely night sleeping in the clinic in my sundress, with a grungy mouth and no toothbrush in sight, I woke at 4:30 AM, still hooked up to my IV, to the sound of roosters. I couldn’t get the wifi to work, I had finished reading my 400-page novel, so I took some time to go over my teaching notes for the retreat, to review our itinerary, and otherwise put my teaching hat on. I prayed that I’d get sprung from the clinic first thing in the morning. I felt good, just stiff and sore from lying in bed for 24 hours. I no longer had stomach cramps or diarrhea. If anything, I had the opposite problem. With all the plug-up drugs they gave me, now nothing was coming out and I had that uncomfortably full feeling in my belly. I hoped this wasn’t going to be like hospitalizations after surgery ... [Continue Reading]

Last night, I found out that one member of our group, Linne, had arrived before me. She’d flown in early to give herself time to recover from the long journey. So I wasn’t as alone here as I thought. Linne and I had dinner together, comparing notes about travel while getting acquainted with each other. And I found out that another member of our group, Tawnya, is arriving today. So my dilemma of what to do with my final days of solo travel has become moot. At 7 AM this morning, I was safely tucked in my beachside room at the Lotus Bungalows two days before the rest of the group was due to arrive. Unfortunately, I was facing two major problems. My squirrelly stomach continued to bother me, and without going into the gross details, let’s just say, things were not coming out the way they ... [Continue Reading]

I woke up this morning to the sound of the call to prayer and roosters. It is just starting to grow light. This is my last morning in Amed. As I think about moving to Candidasa, I realize that I’m tired of being “a vacation consumer.” Five or six days of that is lovely—but now I want to do more than just consume experiences. It’s not like I have a lot of time to explore what that means—Karyn and our group of fellow travelers are arriving in three days—but I’m noticing that I’m hungry for something more engaged. Like work or study or otherwise being part of Bali, rather than being entertained by it. In part, my contact with individuals here has shifted my perspective because I have more of a sense of what the people who are serving me are going through in their lives. My awareness of ... [Continue Reading]

I was restless last night. I couldn’t fall asleep and was up again at 5:00 AM. I went out to the beach to see the fishermen taking off in their boats, but the beach was silent and the jukung remained on the shore. It is not a good day for fishing apparently. I went for a walk up the road. This town is so schizophrenic—lots of local life going on:

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On My Own… This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve ever been on vacation by myself. I’ve traveled for business, gone to conferences, and gone to visit relatives and friends, but setting out for an unknown place without an agenda, a plan or a purpose—that’s new, and definitely outside my comfort zone. I said goodbye to Allison today. When we left Pemuteran, we shared a car; she was on her way to Ubud and I was on my way to Amed, several hours past her drop-off point. We were both feeling sad about saying good-bye. We’d very successful traveling companions. As we headed into the Munduk region, we started to see cloves in big tarps drying by the side of the road. Cloves are big business here; one clove tree can produce 20 kilos of cloves, and the price for one kilo is $18.00; ... [Continue Reading]

I dove this morning—wonderful visibility and a great variety of corals, many of which I’d never seen before. Even better, when you haven’t gone diving in a while (in my case a year), it takes time to remember how to be underwater. Today, I felt like I got my groove back. I was no longer struggling with buoyancy, I could move slowly and conserve my air and I could hover in the water to study something without surging upwards or downwards, constantly inflating or deflating my BCD. I’m going (I think) on another night dive tonight. I did one last night and I loved it. I adore the sensation of being underwater in the dark. Each diver carries a lantern that’s strapped to her wrist, so each person has her own light source. When you’re underwater at night, you stick close to your guide. And ... [Continue Reading]

I woke up early this morning to the sound of torrential rain and thunder. It was a huge storm. By early morning it was still raining, but more a drizzle. Since some of our plans today were outdoors, we weren’t sure what would happen, but ever since I lived in Ketchikan, Alaska, where it rains 137 feet a year (twice the precipitation of Seattle), doing things in the rain doesn’t bother me. All that happens is that you get wet. What’s the big deal? Allison and I signed on to take a Balinese cooking class this afternoon; in fine print at the bottom of the menu of our favorite restaurant was a little statement about being able to take a cooking class for $35 each (and a trip to the market was included.) We told them what dishes we wanted to learn to make and the next step was going to the ... [Continue Reading]

This afternoon while I was getting my massage I began to feel tired of being the pampered tourist. I don’t like being in the tourist bubble surrounded by local people waiting on me. It makes me feel too much like the ugly American. And although the luxury of our accommodations and the care taken at this resort to meet our every need is deeply relaxing and wonderful on one level, I starting feeling the need and desire to experience something more real. Tonight I got what I asked for. At 7:30, Allison and I met up with the two drivers we'd asked for, Kadek and Kadek. They arrived, sans helmets, ready to take us wherever we wanted to go. The older Kadek (still a young man—by my guess he’s about 30) is married with two young children. The younger Kadek is 20, my son Eli’s age, and he was ... [Continue Reading]