too close for comfort?

30 April, 2012

...standing in a towel, my hair dripped onto the wooden floors of the bungalow right next to a giant spider that had scuttled across the floor, past my foot and hid in the shadows of my shelves.

I shrugged it off and remembered the people at Tushita Meditation Center telling us not only should we not kill insects (I never do anyways) but i should not even move them or mess with them.

Every night i went to bed for nine nights at Tushita, I slept with a giant brown spider on the wall above my head.

I just accepted it.

This was no different… I dried my skin and lathered up with flower smelling mosquito repellant and hummed a new song i wrote… Suddenly i heard a tip tack tack tap sound which at first sounded the way raindrops sound at the beginning of a storm when they start dancing on the sagu palm roof… but this crackling sound was different.

i looked out the "window" and saw Mario lighting a fire of brush and dried palm frawns on the opposite side of the bamboo fence maybe 5 meters away from our bungalow.

My first instinct was to tell him he was too close and frantically i looked for the nearest fire extinguisher.

Then i remembered that he owns this place and has lived here for 8 years.

He knows what he is doing.

I exhaled 

The smoke rose up with the long palm tree trunks like dry ice climbing up the stalks of long long long stemmed roses in an eerie horror movie kind of way. The sky was grey, like it's been all day.

But my fears were unfounded and silly.

Soon the fire put itself out and Mario walked back to the restaurant.

I thought about two nights ago when we had a belated birthday party for me and Mario took an aerosol can and a lighter and created fire bombs in the air of the restaurant.

(The last group was a crew of young pro surfers who loved the fire bomb trick and ended up lighting their hair on fire.)

I told Mario that i was scared he was too close to the lamps in the restaurant and he laughed at me and blew one directly on the lamp to show me it was no big deal.

Once again i found myself shaking off this gut instinct where i feel that things are "too close for comfort"

Even now, the bats are doing their usual evening circle around the restaurant diving down so close to our heads- but of course they are bats and use sonar and never fly into anything no matter how close they come to us.

I started thinking about the idea of "too close for comfort"….

Soo.... Is that to say that "comfort" is inherently something that is far away and removed from other things?

Weird.

I feel like maybe in the western world we are a bit like that…  germaphobes, people-a-phobes… living in bubbles and crystal palaces away from others.

Children have their own rooms… Hospitals have pully sheets that provide privacy for patients… You excuse yourself if you brush by or touch a stranger and apologize for contact.

Not in indonesia… or any third world country i have been to.

Closeness is comfort here.

When we drive here in Indonesia you juuuuust barely skim past the next motorbike and cars and taxis seem to park and stop right on top of one another… Something we never do in America.

In America, we leave an entire car's length around us and even then sometimes think people are tailgating us.

In India I sat on a bus one time so close to so many people that a man was literally and completely sitting ON my lap without a word of apology. That was just the way it was.

When I lived in England we would smash onto the tube like sardines, but there was an annoyance and awkwardness when your body was touching another.

Not here.

There is no such thing as uncomfortably close.

Instead, Indonesian families sleep in the same room and often the same bed… they live on top of one another in every way.

I don't believe it is just due to the poverty... I think there is a comfort from being so close to fellow humans.

When I went to the "hospital" in the village last week when i had malaria, it was a front room of the doctor's house. 

When i had to get an ultrasound in India for a random illness i picked up they pulled me on the table and yanked my shirt down before the other woman had even stepped down from the table or gotten her clothes back on. Three sets of hands were pushing me and pulling me around the hospital.

When I was at the healer in the village, her entire family stood in the room and stared at me like they were watching TV. Blank faces just watching me.

I was totally paranoid - as is a common symptom of malaria - and freaking out that there were so many strangers in the room with me and children crowded at the window to watch me suffering… but to them it was no big deal.

No adult told the children to stop coming up to me to get a closer look.

Maybe they thought it would be comforting?

I don't know.

But what I have found over the last few years out here in Indonesia, is that as soon as I let go of this western fixation about wanting this personal bubble and my own space - wanting to hold "danger" and stranger at a distance, i find myself much happier… more at ease and one with the way here.

I remember that we are all together in this thing we call life…

And we leave a ridiculous amount of buffer room and safety net space in America.

We don't need it.

I encourage you to get closer. See what happens.

The pink and purple cotton candy colored sky is reflecting off the water stretched out along the reef right now. The bats are circling and bin tangs are being cracked open.

Another night at surfing village.

I will be leaving in a few days and making my way to Padang and then out to Togat Nusa, the retreat in the Mentawais where i lived all last season…. Taking the month off from Surfing Village until we get more guests coming.

Tawney and I were supposed to take a cement boat (something i wasn't fussed about but would have been an experience Tawney would have probably quite enjoyed - being UP CLOSE and personal with all the cement boat guys for 24 hours)… But it left without us and without warning and won't leave again for 3 weeks. Fail.

SO now we have a mission and a half to get to Padang - we will have to go to Telo (a few hours away by motorized canoe) and we'll patiently wait for a plane - if we can't get on it (they say its all full) - we will have to stay in the village and wait for the next day and try our luck again.

It's possible we will have to fly to Medan first and then connect to Padang.

Such is Indo.

Close and confused… Totally disconnected from time altogether but will give you all the time in the day to talk and touch and love you… I have decided that the Indos are very comforting.

I'm looking forward to seeing my estranged Togat Nusa family who bring me an unbelievable amount of comfort and joy.

First though i have the hurdle of GETTING there - will check in after i jump that hurdle.

Wish me luck.