Playground

(just add a bit of color)

Theme park. 

That summarizes my idea of Ubud. An unoriginal thought. As unoriginal as any tourist spot in the world. Stretches of shops and convenience stores. Grownups spending the time and money they’ve saved up to make up for lost time and selves. And I’m in it for two whole weeks.

One thing that makes it so fun is that Ubud is not that big. Took me a couple of hours to walk from Jalan Sandat to the very end of Jalan Bisma, then around the Monkey Forest then all the way back up to Sandat again. Ubud is like a theme park but with beds.

Old habits don’t disappear just because you’ve moved places. The most persistent of my habits, in spite of all the good intentions in the world, had to succumb to afternoon naps. So we’ll start there. I know I did yoga sometime in the morning, but it was the nap that started my first day in Ubud.

Because, after the nap, I would be giddy with invincibility. Like I could do everything in that one evening. A state of inspired. We don’t argue with gifts like that. We accept and treat it gently. Allow it to build and balloon. Allow the muses to calm their chatter and receive our offering of selves.

I’m still time managing, albeit absentmindedly. I know now that mornings are for yoga and writing. And that noon times are for naps. And that evenings may or may not be for laundry. But one thing for sure is that, at the strike of 3 PM, management bites the dust and that state of inspired restarts.

That’s when things get really, really nice. The tilted sun sprinkles magic dust all over the place, making everything golden. And all that gold is within walking distance. And walking distances are easier to traverse with motivational bragging rights. And bragging rights are easily earned with GPS enabled toys. And toys are more fun with friends. And friends create peer pressure.

Peer pressure consists of Valin, who is eight years my senior and hikes across the Alps. And Mamad who, at my age, runs five kilometers at a breeze, every morning. And the people in my yoga classes who bend and twist and hold impossible asanas in spite of deep wrinkles and angry ankles.

No apologies. That’s the point to this reminder. I’m not going to apologize for half-minded blog posts and uncharted ramblings. I’m not going to apologize for leaving home and indulging in the banality of touristy attractions, for two whole weeks. 

And I’m definitely not going to apologize for naps, due in 23.2 minutes from now.