Coffee and vanilla bean

I have developed quite a taste for Bali coffee with half a fresh vanilla pod and a dash of honey and milk. Vanilla pod was always one of those luxury items that never made it to my shopping trolley but the spices at the markets here throw their scent through the cellophane and are an irresistible enticement of colour and promised flavour. The last time I was here I lusted after them but knew I would not get them home through customs. Now as my kitchen capacity grows I plan to celebrate their availability. Who has a great recipe for star anise?
I am enjoying my days at home. Afternoon thunderstorms, morning massages, the ever watchful workers who come and clean the room the minute I leave the house. Lifestyle is so affordable here, and I am enjoying the ease, the cooked breakfasts, the cleaner and groundskeepers. Yesterday I went out to take some clothes to the laundry where they are washed and dried and ironed.....OMG....to see four or five of the workers here tending the garden. They were trimming the lawns with hedge clippers, and cutting banana leaves to use for their ceremonial dishes. The idea of using a noisy lawnmower because it was quicker was a joke for them, Bali time is quiet time.
My writing has started to find a rhythm and the story has begun.

Connection

There was a huge golden orb weaver hung in space off my balcony this morning.
Balinese pancakes are green, and breakfast on the terrace is divine.
It looked a little off kilter, I thought perhaps it was injured but closer inspection revealed that it was actually pulling silk from its abdomen to construct a new web. It was balanced precariously on the tenuous threads of it's beginning. By the end of the morning it had completed its task, sunlight threw golden shimmers across its masterpiece. But the thing that struck me was the change in the creature at it's centre. Poised, legs spread as it read the vibrations along every strand. it was in perfect balance. No longer an ungainly creature struggling in space but connected contained and engaged.
Slowly in Bali I feel similar threads weaving a new life for me. New connections to bring balance to the places where I have struggled to maintain equilibrium, to find a foothold. All my familiar threads are broken but there are new beginnings and my tentative limbs are now open to the vibrations of another web.
Today I sorted through all my writing and the forest showed me how to start my story. I had three warm and unexpected displays of affection from local people I have met and am reassured by the gentle spirit of this place.

Well, today's the day!
The tedium of shopping and house hunting and currency conversion complete I have a whole day, alone, in my room, with my laptop...........
Hmmmmmmmmm, daunting really when you get what you want.
For more than two years I've been saying I want to write a book. I want to stop work so I can stay focussed and inspired. I've wanted to write since I was five.
Well. Here I am.
OhOh!

A room with a view.
A place to write and hideaway.
The housing goddess has been good.

Landed

The rain runs quicksilver down the frog green corrugations of a banana leaf at the edge of my balcony. Workers from the rice paddy, just over the river gully in front, dash under similar fronds to their next work station and we sit squashing mozzies and enjoy the fading light. Should probably close the doors now it's that time of afternoon but the air is too refreshing to shut out.

The last few days have slowed down, we nurse Bali belly and dip occasionally into the pool between bowls of miso soup and other easily digestible fare. We stink of the garlic liberally applied to last nights meal in an attempt to kill off whatever it is that has lodged in our guts.
Turmeric tea and 3 tablespoons of papaya seeds are the local remedy but the rain and lethargy have not made sourcing either very appealing, maybe tomorrow.

The last week means that I can last now for about 20 minutes without overwhelm and tears when I converse with strangers. We have a place to stay for 2 months and the inside info on how to extend our visas without leaving the country. We have caused a scandal on 2 separate occasions and have talk in the marketplace about us in relation to our innocent blunders with the locals but the Balinese are ever smiling, very forgiving, (outwardly at least) and it appears no lasting offense has been taken.

Already we have grown a network of contacts, both locals and foreigners. People seem easy to meet in Bali. Dave has an artist's residency at a designer gallery that ships ceramics all over the world and I have just about thrown off the self recriminations about my lack of writing. Why is it so hard to allow myself some time to come to terms with the upheaval of the last three months?
It's not everyday your mother dies, your last kid leaves home, you pack all your belongings into a storage shed because your landlord wants your house back, you sell your car, give away your pets and take off to live in a foreign country whilst trying to manage menopausal emotions exacerbating all the other shit!!!!!! I reckon I can take a couple of weeks or more before anything even vaguely resembling either inspiration or concentration can be expected to emanate from my brain box. So there! Rain on banana fronds.....mmm,very soothing!

MMMMMMmm Bali

Bali is proving to be a very interesting experience already. Offers to help and guide and sponsor and support are coming from every direction. The great white tourist, the hope of Bali obviously embodied in us........scarry really, I've never anticipated being the great white hope of anyone, not consiously, although now I think of it, that movie with Barbara Streisand when she played the therapist and had her name chanted as a mantra by one of her grateful clients....."Lowenstien, Lowenstien"........did appeal I must say, back in the days when I was hoping to be the salvation of some of the young people that I worked with. Hehehehe, and then there was that soul collage card that I created, I'll see if I can upload the pic....of the woman holding up the light for the unfortunates cowering in the darkness. OMG, I do have a saviour complex!!!!!!
Better watch that I guess, especially now that I recall yet another story where some loony ( a politically incorrect term I know, and one based soley on my difficult experience with this particular individual)tried to co-op me, not without some appeal I might add, to join him and the other angels sent to earth to hold back the forces of evil overtaking the planet......cringe!!!!
That was in the early days of my Christian phase which will be further explored in my book...........stay tuned :0

There's a book inside of me scratching to get out!!!

Three weeks since my last entry.
Not two weeks since my mother died.
Unexpectedly.
One week ago I stood crying in the shopping mall.
My 2 adult daughters no longer visible and my fractured nerves post funeral unable to cope with being alone, out in the world after three weeks of confinement stroking the fading life from my mothers body, waiting for her final breath.
Now I sit on my third floor balcony, Ubud, Bali.
Mount Batur visible for the first time since our arrival, a clear cool day.
Gradually the stimuli from the outside world arrive without completely jarring and strangers, smells and sights register through the fog.
How long it will take to land and establish the routine I need to focus on more than just these few words I cannot say. But stay tuned as the journey unfolds