mentaWHY not?

mentaWHY?... mentaWHY NOT?

date/time?
no clue.
i'm already in the time warp

i do know that the world was supposed to end yesterday.
it didn't.
phew.



i called my dad a few days ago... or yesterday i guess... no. it would have been the evening before yesterday.
(what was suposed to be our last night as a planet i think)

anyways - whatever.
i called my dad to say hi. i hadn't checked in with my family since i returned to the island...
he told me about the new house they bought in san diego and their plans to move.
they told me about my friends that they had met and been hanging out with in san fran...
and then he told me about how there was some guy predicting the end of the world starting in new zealand at 6pm and then spanning around the world.
we sarcastically made a plan to wear a red carnation and meet at the far right post of saint peter's gate.
since i was gonna get there first i was to make a request that dad needs extra leg room. (an emergency row would work just fine).
we laughed and hung up and i walked back up from our cell phone reception spot on the sand and in to the driftwod castle. there was lightning over my head as i was talking and it was about to pour rain.

then i kind of got to thinking.

man... what would happen if i got hit by lightning and died that minute - my world WOULD be over.
i am well aware that we are all dreaming this reality into existance.
we are all just floating atoms reflecting one another and creating the world as we know it.
so what would happen if i died?

it's like the tree falling in the woods when nobody is around.
nobody is there to hear if it makes a sound so who's to say that it does?

would my death matter?
would the world end?
am i giving myself WAY too much credit here?
ha

my mind spiraled into fractaling thoughts that clammered one on top of the other until a bolt of lightning lit the sky a purplish-blue and i could see the clouds that looked pink and the silhouette of a charter boat docked out by the break.

i was aLIVE.

i climbed up the Uma stairs and into the driftwood castle and just took a moment and glanced around at each person here.
Each person here has been drawn in by my psyche reflect itself.
Wow. I am lucky.
If these people are reflections of me then i must be pretty damn cool.

John E and Ainsley were sitting slouched down side by side with their feet up on one of the pieces of driftwood art furniture that proudly stood in the Uma, a unique creation among unique creations... The monkey was already in bed at their bungalow because we have guests and we have found that an adorable monkey begging for your food is highly distracting from the deliciousness of the fish that Cahn had caught with a spear that morning and Ruli had spent the evening cooking.

Cahn was sitting at the head of the table where we had finished our dinner about an hour before.
He was just wearing boardshorts as always with his super dark tanned skin telling a story to the guests about surfing i'm sure.

John E was gazing adoringly at Ainsley, his wife and muse who sat next him, completely ignoring Cahn.
Ainsley was braiding her hair and watching the reaction of the guests to Cahn's story.
Our guests were a mix of three groups from three countries.
The Canadian couple and the French brothers I had met in Padang on my way back out here.

I LOVE playing greeting committee, tour guide with the guests.
I used to always play that when friend came through LA... taking them through Hollywood in the convertible and giving them the lay of the land. sharing tid bits of info and just being a hostess...

Padang is a little less of a tourist town and more of a thoroughfare in the wild wild west of Sumatra, West Indonesia...
But i loved telling our new friends what little facts i knew and could share... like the reason for the pointy swooping rooftops which mimic the Minang Cattle in the region.
We had ridden back on the ferry together and laughed a lot.

It was my first experience on the ferry.
(Yes. i am spoiled beyond belief. i have heard it)

But we had a cabin which was cool. (The ferry is in intense - bodies strews everywhere sweating across the floors of this giant boat for about 11 hours overnight).

Our cabin was freezing it was so air conditioned and i ended up fishing out a black trashbag from my suitcase and crawling inside of it to get some kind of insulation as i slept on our bumpy stormy crossing.
I felt very rugged sleeping in a trashbag actually.
It was the trashbag I had wrapped my suitcase in when i left the island so that it didn't get wet on the sampan driving to tua pajet to catch the plane.
I got butterflies in my stomach thinking about my return to the island.
i counted down the hours in that tiny cabin in my douglife sleepingbag.

...My friend Doug wrapped his feet in trashbags one time when his socks got wet on an Eagle Scout trip. My friend Kevin told me that story in Venice one day before i left. Doug had just died and we were sitting at lunch on Rose. I thought about that day, and that story, and then wow. i had left Venice... Come to paradise and used this same black trashbag i am sleeping in to keep the crystal clear turquoise water from splashing on my laptop. Thinking of yet another dearly departed friend i grew up with. God i am lucky...

butterflies again.

I woke up on the ferry before the sun came up and watched the Mentawais come into focus through the dawn light.
I watched a peach colored sky emerge and kiss down on the lush green islands we were slowly creeping by.

Home.

from the time Jonas arrived to pick us up at the ferry dock in Tua Pajet, i had the hugest goofiest smile on my face.
I sat at the front of the boat with eyes closed and let the water and wind whip my face and the early morning sun sit right on my eyelids...

Pulling up and seeing this paradise island and my friends, my family here waiting for us to pull up... i was literally teeming over with gratitude and wanted to cry and tackle all of them, starting with Jojo... the best dog in the Mentawais and the greeting committee for the island.

John E, Ainsley, Cahn, and my buddy, Birdie.
Birdie and i had talked a lot while i was in Bali... occasional drunken calls from him and contstant text message check ins. We are a little team out here on the island, and i am always learning stuff from him.
He is the surf guide out here but does so much more... constantly helping to make things run smoothly and going above and beyond with his hospitality with the guests and overall Cancerian Host with the Most home-y vibe, plus he speaks Indo dead fluently and takes care of little things that require his skills around here.
I totally missed him while i was in Bali and now as i looked over at this table with the world about to end i saw him sitting at the end of the table with the Aussies laughing.

Three australians were the final group of our guests... these guys had been on a charter boat and just couldn't fathom leaving the Mentawais so they stayed on for an extra week as guests on the island. They were already there when i arrived with the four new ones from Canada and France.

My Mentawai friends Yona and Linda were standing behind the bar laughing and making jokes as always. I love them. they are like my sisters here. Ruli - the head chef was behind the bar too staring at the table. (He likes to watch everyone eat every last morsel of food he cooks. it's a little unnerving to me, but i deal with it. Sometimes i just don't feel like eating but then thinki have to cuz Ruli is giving me that stare down.)

I just stood there, after talking to my dad about the potential end of the world and panning across the giant driftwood room taking it all in.
Drinking in this experience and these people that i love. These reflections of me.
And a giant clap of thunder exploded behind me as if to snap me back to the present moment again and go join the table of friends.

Birdie and I were falling asleep that night and i asked him what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow.

He was quiet for a moment and then started singing this punkrock sounding song.

"If i knew the world was gonna end...
I would just hang out with my friends...
Cuz i wouldn't be me with out them.
Ya i wouldn't be here without them."
(or something like that. he said i have to get him drunk to get him to sing it for me again. its really good actually)

he said he wrote that song when he was 14 or something.

i just about died laughing, crying, and just SO loving that answer.

the next day we woke up and i realized that i had absolutely no choice but to charge it and go surfing because the world was gonna end at 6 and i had a lot of work to do in order to get barrelled in that time... including making the waves a little bigger, but not too big that i would get sacred and run away from them.

As we all sat on surfboards under the beautiful day stretched out on a canvas above our heads lit by early afternoon sunlight i thought to myself

"if i knew the world would end... i would just hang out with my friends."

and there i was.
hanging out in the water with some people i love.
what ELSE would i possibly do?

Birdie and I realized that neither of us really have bucket lists...
We have both done pretty much all the things we have dreamt about doing.

Sure - i still really want to go to Macchu Pichu and would be prertty bummed if i died and didn't make it there...
and there is a lot of travelling i will want to do.. but i feel like WOW. i have done all the scary, amazing "things to do before you die"

I think the Mentawais is like that for a lot of surfers.

They dream about this place their entire lives and finally make it as one last splash of realizing that there are no pockets in our coffins and we can't take any money or anybody with us... so why not take the trip of a lifetime and do what you've always dreamed you'd do before you die... and come to the mentawais...

mentaWHY? mentaWHYnot?

we're all gonna die some day, so i guess the world will end before we know it whether we are expecting it or not.
all the more reason to live for today.
for the birds that fly away.