writing for self-discovery

Life here is surreal. One minute I am dressed in my sarong and kebaya, looking as much like a traditional Balinese woman as a white-skinned, pale-eyed Norwegian can. The next I’m sitting amongst the cushions on my terrace eating popcorn sprinkled with chili powder, drinking Guinness, and watching Downton Abbey with my neighbor from Michigan. Nina has the whole series. She offered to loan it to me. I started to tell her ‘no thanks,’ but before I could get the words out she said, “No! You NEED to watch this. You’ll LOVE it.” Nina has a flair for the dramatic (her Sicilian side) but she’s believable. I watched the first five minutes of the first episode and was hooked.

Image from Bing

I think the U.S. has a fascination with the Brits. I always have. What does a lord do, exactly? And what is the function of a valet, or a footman, or a lady’s maid? Downton Abbey gives it to me, all of it. I’m in on the dirty little secrets of both the gentry and their staff. So when Nina offered to make popcorn, a skill I have yet to acquire here, and do a Downton Abbey marathon, it was a solid thumbs-up. The only thing I like better than salty popcorn, come to find out, is salty popcorn sprinkled with chili powder. The Guinness chaser was icing on the cake.

Image from Bing

Last night around 8:30, Nina and the popcorn appeared. I had my computer ready. We arranged the cushions and pillows for maximum comfort and settled in. About mid-way through, as I switched out CDs to disc 2 of season 2, it hit me. It was one of those strange moments when everything slows way down. Colors bleed together and sounds move far away. Where am I? The question was real. I felt detached from everything tangible. Had I been meditating I would have assumed I’d reached enlightenment, or some grand altered state of consciousness. But I was watching Downton Abbey and I wasn’t yet drunk, nor was I going to get drunk as I only had two bottle of Guinness and Nina was drinking the other one.

It’s an odd sensation, like waking up in a strange place. Eating popcorn and watching movies with friends was a happy part of a different life.  It hasn’t been my reality for almost a year. But here I was, doing exactly that with another white-skinned, pale-eyed Midwesterner. It seriously played with my mind. The moment passed and I rejoined myself at the movies. But it made me think.

The longer I am in Bali, the more I experience the sensitivity of the body. It adapts to where it lives and does what it needs to do to exist there. In the West that often results in a numbing process that enables it to survive the continuous onslaught of stimuli and inordinate amounts of stress it is subjected to. Alcohol, television, movies, are some of the sedatives of choice to help escape a toxic lifestyle. Like most poisons, it takes time for the body to rid itself of the effects of those toxins. After nine months of gentle, uncomplicated living, mine has loosened, the muscles have unknotted, the mind has stopped spinning.

What I experienced in that weird interlude of disconnect, was a body/mind reaction to something it perceived as out of context. It went deep. “This isn’t your truth,” the body warned. “I don’t want to go back there,” the mind echoed. They had their say. I slid disc 2 into the computer and was soon carried away with the Grantham family and their dramas. I enjoyed the story, the popcorn, and the companionship of my friend, thoroughly. And now that I’ve had a chance to reflect, I see that a movie and a beer means something different here. It isn’t an escape from anything. It’s just pure play.