HELLO +62

dreamland-longboard
balangan
dreamland

It’s been a fortnight. M spent the first week entertaining his friends from KL (we made a glorious day trip to dreamland), and we spent the second navigating the labyrinths of starting a business in +62. The bureaucracy does not make sense, work culture is fleeting and fluid/does not exist, and we ride for hours to accomplish the most minute tasks. Everyday I balance the anxiety of moving too slowly with the imprudence of spending too quickly, eclipsed by the guilt of wanting to be in the ocean every sunset. Yesterday, we bought a loft and I remember with gratitude that I am constantly embraced by the sweetness, the aggressive ripeness of summer.

LIKE APOCALYPSE BUT NOT QUITE

1.
God wanted to use the dry brush tonight.
berawa-sunset

2.
M pulls me, lazy and protesting, out of the room and onto the balcony. it is chilly and quiet in the Canggu night.
listen.
there is a faraway roaring in the air, like thunder but not quite, filling the black dome of stars around our village.
it is the sound of the ocean.
the sound of the ocean washed over my heart.

3.
i am creating another life. mysterious, spartan, but above all, new and better.

TO MUM


Wishing I knew more about architecture so I can bring its stories home – telling you I counted Ionic orders, Doric columns, pretended to hold up porticos in pictures and tumbled down a crepidoma (which I am standing on in this picture) into a ramshackle hypocaust, keystones, Byzantine arches, Gothic ornaments, waxing lyrical like a 8th century builder. It would be very good to understand, or would my head explode in rapture? Most of the time I am collecting memories of grandeur I fail to appropriate into mere words. I want you to see all that I have seen.

AMALFI COAST, ITALY

Along the Amalfi coast, en route Amalfi town from Positano. The blue SITA bus will shuttle you along the drive (7.2€ buys a 24hr pass), holding you captive to beauty and exhilaration because this journey is a mere foot away from a sheer plunge into the rocks and ocean. I ignored my screaming mind and leaned across Sheena to film.

See, the road is a lover of the mountains, hugging them with sinuous lines and meanders. Each concave turn reveals resorts hidden in unique rocky coves, nestled within the folds of the valley. As it curves out, the expanse of the Mediterranean is startling and wonderful to behold, waves hurtling themselves against the cliffs, crests flecked with froth. The sea is so deeply azure it feels viscous, like it’s got density and strength. If i were to hold it, it would stain my fingers blue. It is liquid sapphire.

Where I always feel belittled before nature’s magnificence, here I felt a delirious sense of possibility. The world is so pulsating and tremulous with beauty and I cannot wait to take in more. I have never seen anything like this.

BAMBI

This New Year’s Eve, I picked up a kitten which stumbled like a newborn fawn, all tabby and bones. 2011 began with my heart breaking, when I found out she didn’t have a cure, so all she gets is a bellyful of fish and a whole lotta loving.

PREKRASNOE DALEKO

Jeremy and I have been on a rampage for Russian folk tunes recently, him more so than me.  Pretty melodies set in a foreign language are charming more often than not. Prekrasnoe Daleko (translated: Beautiful Future) is one of our favourites at the moment. It is the soundtrack to a five-part Russian telemovie, Gostya iz Budushchego (Guest from the Future) filmed in 1985. Isn’t this video spectacular? Isn’t the girl at 2:00 perfect? There is a fond place in my heart for mushroom bobs.`

Silas being his usual contortionist perfection on a lazy afternoon. His Chinese name is 林喜乐 – a phonetic translation of Silas in Mandarin, also directly translating into “happy joy”, which is exactly what he is. Silas 林喜乐, you are absolutely perfect to me!