During my second trip to Bali in August 2007, I had the great fortune to work with Australian singer, comedian, writer and director of Writer’s Journey, Jan Cornall, during a creative writing workshop as part of the Bali Institute for Global Renewal. Jan had us do a timed writing exercise as we sat around a common table under a pavilion beside a rice paddy. Next to us a farmer chased a monkey chasing ducks across a bund while an old man bathed naked in an irrigation ditch, thinking he was invisible. I recently rediscovered what I had scribbled down during that quick write.
“Anything that turns up, just let it turn up.” Like the volume on the stereo or a guest at the door? Turn up, turn it up Wake up, wake it up; to night and day, to light and shade, to eager change. Hearsay’s distant storm forewarns, from someplace else to where I am, an approaching wreck to life and limb, that circulates among our kin. But out of sight is out of mind and brings a carefree separation from what could have been the weather’s fickle pilgrimage. Despite typhonic rumors wraith, adventure calls to an unknown place, a chance to release this somber state of what comes next or what should be. Alone, not worried, sounds of life and ice in glasses rattle while monkeys watch and wonder what it is we’re doing. Quiet heads bent over pages, writing words in random phrases; thoughts in stages at the center of this query. Souls and hearts or in between. “Two minutes to go.” When was that said? Two minutes to go, we’re at the end. Ubud, Bali, 2007