The sky is so blue today and the greens are so green and the tile cutter is so silent (though my ears are pricked and my shoulders hunched, just waiting for it to start up again) and for a moment as I sit in the garden watching the butterflies I actually wonder what the fuck I am thinking. Leave Bali? AM I INSANE? This summer I lasted approximately 3 days in the UK before I broke down and screamed ‘I hate England!’ at my dad. And that was summer. I’m going to be heading back in the dead of winter. And I only own a pair of flip flops.
To be fair it was 13 degrees and hailing in the UK when I screamed these words and I had just been told by Waterstones Chester that they didn’t want me to go and sign any books there because… they didn’t have any of my books in stock to sign.
But my point is I’m not sure I know where I want to live and this endless striving for somewhere ‘other’, somewhere ‘else’ – where does it lead? Not to Utopia that’s for sure. I know that doesn’t exist (except on channel 4 – it’s rather good, watch it). But I can’t help looking.
I was harsh in my previous post but I stand by it. The traffic and pollution and construction in Bali is out of hand. And dozens of people responded to say they feel the same and that’s why they too are leaving / have already left.
I think it’s easier to break up with someone though if you start noticing and listing their bad points, which is what I’m doing to make the break up less painful when the inevitable moment comes.
And the truth is we are leaving for more reasons than the construction and the beige toilet. We’re leaving because our careers are beckoning us new places.
When we first quit our jobs in London and took off around the world looking for a new place to call home we decided to do the boldest thing we could think of. We didn’t take a sabbatical, we handed in our notices. We quit our jobs, announced it to the world and from then on there was no going back (or there was but we would have looked stupid and been unemployed).
Writing that post about leaving Bali a couple of days ago was me handing in my notice. Making it public means no going back. I want to launch myself again into the stratosphere. Last time the universe caught us and rewarded us hugely, and I’m hoping the same will happen again.
The truth is we have no home to go to, no real plan, no concrete work in the pipeline. But this time I’m not so worried. I think the hardest part is done. The hardest part is making the decision, then announcing it to the world. The rest is relatively easy because from that moment you’re in the flow (oooh I sound so hippy).
I don’t know. Is that useful for anyone? I feel that it’s the most important thing we’ve learned being here. That big decisions are only really scary up until the point you make them and then the fear gives way to excitement and the adventure of what if?
A beige toilet. That’s really the reason. Everyone was so touched and moved by my last post but if I’m going to get really truthful with you all, the real reason we’re moving from Bali isn’t the trash or the pollution or the death metal band that’s been screeching for 12 hours across the rice paddies drowning out the sound of the tile cutter. It’s not even the fact John has a great job in London (for 9 months). It’s the beige toilet.
It all started like this… (and now I think about it actually I’m wondering if this wasn’t orchestrated by the universe) …
The toilet won’t flush. I lift off the cistern lid, place it on the toilet seat and prod at the plastic parts inside the cistern like I have a clue what they actually do. After a few minutes of sighing and prodding I lose patience, turn to yell for John and knock the lid to the floor. It smashes into a gazillion pieces (and cuts my foot in the process).
This being Bali you can’t just head to HomeBase and buy a new cistern lid. No. You’re fucked. You have to buy a whole NEW TOILET.
Just SIGH.
So I go to buy a new toilet. I select one – white, normal, whatever – and head to the desk and ask for the price. They can’t find it. They spend fifteen minutes calling various people to find out the cost of the toilet. They still don’t know. After twenty minutes of this I tell them I’ll come back later.
I don’t go back later because I’m busy. I have a book to finish and three other books to promote and I’m spending fifteen hours a day working (this is also why I haven’t been blogging – being an author is REALLY HARD WORK. Why did no one tell me?) And days pass and I know we need to get a new loo… but when?
Then the time comes that I wake up one morning at my normal time of 5.30am. It’s dark. Needing a wee I grab my iPad to check my email en route. I prop the iPad on the cistern lid… but WAIT… there is no cistern lid.
And let me tell you now my $80 bomb-proof, splash proof, nuclear proof iPad case ain’t all it claims to be. It’s not cistern proof at least.
So we really need a new toilet before we drop any more expensive tech items into it but both of us being busy we decide to ask Komang, our handyman and sometime driver, to buy it for us. We send him off with clear instructions as to what to buy (or as it turns out maybe not so clear).
Nothing happens. This is Bali after all. Nothing happens for a week.
And then I come home and find this installed in our bathroom.
I’m not sure the picture does justice to the thing. It just looks like a toilet I know. It could be worse. It could be a hole over an open sewer. But the thing is, I never knew that toilets could be uncomfortable until I tried this one. It’s like sitting on a ring of thorns. I’m sure there are spikes that are more comfortable than this toilet seat.
I looked at John and told him that after five years a beige toilet was going to be the thing to make us leave Bali. And what do you know…
It has been over a year since I last posted. Are any of you still out there?
I’ve been busy writing books and screenplays. My 8th book just got published. Check it out! It’s doing awesomely on Amazon and is only 99p at the moment… just saying… 🙂 (Here’s Amazon.Com’s link).
I figured it was time to post an update because this is a big one.
Almost five years ago now we took off on our adventure that brought us to Bali. It was an island we fell in love with instantly, a place we were excited and thrilled to call home. Now though I’m heartbroken to admit that we’ve fallen out of love.
Bali is the lover you cling on to longer than you probably should because the memories are just so good and you keep hoping that things will get better, but you know in your heart of hearts you can’t be together long-term. So it’s with sadness I write this post.
Bali has been good to us. It’s given us a new beginning – allowed us to explore our passions and develop those into successful careers. It’s granted us the space to dream bigger and bolder and realise our strengths. Five years ago we never dreamed so big, nor had such self-belief. Now we feel like we can achieve anything. No obstacle seems insurmountable. We feel like adventurers who’ve climbed a mountain and who can now can climb any other peak that gets in our way.
Alula has flourished in Bali – it’s a magical place to raise young children. She’s full of delight at the world, knows nothing of Justin Bieber and has an innocence yet knowledge of the world, of poverty, of religion and people, that I think will stand her in good stead the rest of her life.
So why is it time to leave Bali?
I just got back from a 7-week trip to the UK and US and stepping off the plane in Bali for the first time my spirits didn’t lift like they always used to. Instead, as we drove through miles and miles of traffic clogged streets, past rivers of trash, I felt my heart sink lower and lower.
Arriving home we were greeted not by the sound of crickets and frogs – the sounds we once fell in love with – but by the incessant sound of a tile cutter, now so normal to my ears it’s like white noise. The noise of construction never ends.
The rice paddies outside our house once stretched to the horizon. Now houses spring up like mushrooms every week. I have to wear noise-cancelling headphones all day in order to work, in order to stay sane.
I’m saddened by westerners who have bought rice paddy land from poor, and financially-ill-educated Balinese who, enticed by earning more money than they’ve ever seen in their life, hand over the deeds to their land for 35 years or more, often resulting in further abject poverty when they no longer have any sustainable income (the money they receive from the deal is often spent immediately on cars, ceremonies, family needs). I’m saddened that westerners think this is OK. That it’s OK to send your children to Green School and spout a green agenda while building a concrete Macmansion on rice fields with an Olympic sized swimming pool, possibly thrusting a Balinese family into poverty in the process. No. That’s not OK. In what world is that OK?
It feels as if greed has become the underlying sentiment on the island. Between people out to make money any which way they can, or wanting simply to build their dream, not caring that doing so tramples the dreams of others, and the western fishermen-pant yogi types here worshipping at the cult of raw food while spouting bullshit om shanti mantras and walking around barefoot clutching their green juice, I just want out.
I’m mad at the Indonesian government for not putting in place legislation to better protect the beauty of this island and local communities. Because the fact is I’m now warning off friends from coming here. Why waste the money? I sat next to two honeymooners on the flight over and felt awful for them that they were flying 20 hours to come to Bali.
The beaches are filthy. The rivers basically open sewers. The rice paddies are vanishing beneath concrete.
I was here 20 years ago, when Bali truly was a paradise. Now, I have to say, it more and more resembles hell.
I no longer dare head into town – aware that the streets are so jammed that Ubud could contend with San Francisco for worst traffic congestion. I’m also aware that I’m one of the people making the situation worse by adding yet one more car to the equation.
It simply feels wrong being here, contributing to the destruction of an island so magical and beautiful. Watching its decline before my eyes is too much. I feel too sad and too angry at myself for not doing anything to stop it. The only thing I feel I can do, is leave, be one less person using up the valuable water table, be one less person consuming, abusing and polluting.
And in the last day I’ve spoken to three other people who are also leaving because they can’t bear to see the devastation either. Is this the turning point? Is this now the moment where Bali sees its tourist economy crash and burn? What happens when Lombok opens its international airport and that becomes the new hot destination – Bali as it was twenty five years ago? What happens to Bali and to the Balinese then? Who will stay around to fix the problems?
There are so many lessons we will take from Bali, the biggest of which is about consumption. We came to Bali with nothing. And we’ll take nothing to wherever we move next. Except perhaps a Ganesha statue and some palm sugar. We’ve learned we don’t need anything – not even a second bedroom. We just need each other. We live big lives in a small home. We love it.
We have let go of all the western nonsense about belongings and a huge home and shiny appliances equalling success and happiness. We’ve learned that struggling is part of living and that we are stronger than we thought.
We’ve had five blissful years of re-learning what community really is about. We’ve made the best friends of our life. We’ve learned from the Balinese to believe in magic. We’ve learned to take things slower and to be more present.
It’s time to see if we can put those lessons into practice back in the west.
I’m going to start blogging again as we start on Can We Live Here part two. Stay tuned!
In true Elizabeth Gilbert style I’m sobbing on the bathroom floor, feeling the cold tile beneath me, clutching my towel to my face. Then I sit bolt upright, stunned by a realization. I stagger to my feet and rush to my laptop. Before I can give myself a chance to rethink my epiphany, I dash out an email with the subject header: QUITTING.
I don’t like to think of myself as a quitter. No one does. But what if we have that wrong. What if quitting is the answer?
Four years ago John and I both quit our jobs in London. Handing in that resignation letter was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I remember the shakes, the adrenaline scoring through my body as though I’d just gone cold turkey. The feeling of elation followed by abject, mind-bending terror. The what the hell have we just done? feeling which made my throat close up and my heart pound violently. It was like jumping out of a plane. That nano-second after you pull the cord and don’t know if the chute is going to open. That moment was our life. Permanently. That still is our life in many respects.
Our idea back then, more an inkling, was that there had to be more to life than the 9-5 grind, the daily commute, the constant juggle of parenthood and full time work and paying bills and trying to see friends and family. We took a loan for a new bathroom, packed two backpacks and, with our three year old tutu-wearing daughter, took off on a round the world trip. Our intention: to find somewhere new to live, somewhere hot, somewhere we could thrive as a family – live healthier, happier lives. Our travels took us to Bali where we’ve lived for the last 3 years. And all those things we wished for have come true.
In the months after we resigned from our jobs in London and packed up our belongings we went through spiraling rollercoasters of emotion though. Fear, panic, joy. Did I mention panic? In its most pure, unadulterated form? I had never been unemployed before. John is a designer, used to the freelance lifestyle. I was working as Head of Projects for a non-profit. I had no discernible skills other than an ability to write very convincing, utterly fictional funding reports.
Swimming one day in Beckenham Public Swimming Baths, five months before leaving, I turned my attention to money-making ideas. I came up with a list of people who were rich to see if I could somehow emulate their success. Stephenie Meyer, who wrote Twilight, sprang to mind. She’d become a gazillionaire, all for writing about sparkly vampires. Hah! I shall do the same, I thought. Except without the sparkly vampires. Four lengths later I had the kernel of an idea. Being naïve I never bothered to Google how much authors earn or I might never have touched pen to paper.
That night however, in a state of blissful ignorance, I went home and on a borrowed laptop from work I began writing the story that would become Hunting Lila, my first novel. Four months later I finished it. The day before we left on our round the world trip I sent it to agents. Three weeks later, on the beach in Goa, I received two offers of representation. I signed with a great agent and within a month I had a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster.
I was in ecstasy. I was an author! By then we were in California. I started writing my third book, having already completed the sequel to Hunting Lila. That too got bought. I’m now onto my seventh book with Simon & Schuster. I know. Mind-boggling.
When I tell people my story, their jaws hit the floor. I’d never taken a creative writing course in my life. When I was 18, my English teacher told me not to bother reading English at university. Hah.
The day I handed in my resignation letter, the day I said I quit, was a pivotal moment in my life. Bali is full of bliss ninnies. Some call them sparkle ponies, soul seekers, Elizabeth Gilbert types here to find themselves. I live next door to a girl who professes to be a Priestess of the Goddess Gaia. She holds regular sound healing sessions where dozens of people primal scream en masse. I will never be one of those people. In fact, I’m the one yelling out my window at them to shut the hell up and pounding Eminem on full volume right back at them. I even admit to having launched some wrinkly jicama from my vegetable box at their house (I was never going to eat them, just peeling them seemed like way too much effort). But living here has opened my mind up to the possibility of magic, to the idea that if you are following your passion and doing something you love, if you are bold and brave and dare to follow your dream, you’re rewarded. I am the poster child for this surely?
But the fact is authors earn diddly squat. And Bali ain’t cheap. In the first two years I pounded out books at a rate of knots hoping I’d hit the jackpot and make enough money to not have to worry any more. And worry I did. I lived in a constant state of fear about being broke and not being able to pay the bills. Then one day, through a friend, I got freelance work writing copy for a content company in Australia.
It was boring, soulless work, but it was money. Easy money. I felt relaxed once more. My bank balance was once again in the black. Then the work became more and more SEO focused. ‘Please could you use the phrase ‘health and fitness 14 times in the first 200 words, a further 27 times in the remaining 600 words’ – that sort of thing. I’d sit there, tearing my hair out, screaming at the stupidity of clients, frustrated at having to write about cosmetic surgery and male breast reduction when I wanted to be writing about girls with mind powers, evil government military units, car chases, hot boys and kissing.
Until yesterday that is, when I found myself sobbing on the bathroom floor. The day before I’d been chairing a session at the Ubud Writers’ Festival. I was mobbed after by a group of girls afterwards who wanted me to sign copies of my books. I’d had a great chat the same day with Japanese film-maker, and expert in happiness, Eiji Han Shimizu, about how, if you want to take your career to the next level, you have to learn to say no. We spoke about Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech where he talks about always moving towards the mountain, keeping it in your sights and not getting distracted by jobs that take you off your path.
It felt like the universe conspired to test me on that very thing. The very next morning a difficult, exceedingly bitchy editor pushed me over the edge. I’d had enough. I was sick of saying yes out of fear and accepting work that I hated. I’d had enough of feeling like I had no choice. I wasn’t going to be made to feel bad by some girl who hated her own job so much she was taking it out on me.
So I wrote an email telling them I was done with copy-writing. That from that moment I quit to focus on what I did love doing. I hit send on the email, then collapsed on the floor wondering how I’d tell John. Eventually I emailed him. He sent me this response:
Yes, do it. I’m here and I can see the mountain, it’s next to my hillock. Love you always, especially when you say ‘fuck it’.
I’m still shaking. Hoping what I did was courageous and not stupid. Praying that the universe takes note of my bold leap and pops the chute.
But in the meantime I’ll just keep moving towards the mountain. I said that our life was full of uncertainty. But I would never choose to go back. I would always choose to leap into the great unknown.
Did you know that I also write chick-lit under the pen name Lola Salt, together with the fabulously talented Harper Collins author Becky Wicks? (She called me her writing lobster…awwwww)
Tomorrow, our FREE comedy novel will be featured alongside best-selling, world-famous Irish author and the queen of chick-lit, Marian Keyes, on the new chick-lit section on Wattpad. The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) is a fun story concocted by the two of us. Here’s my interview with Becky.
So Becky, you’re one half of Lola Salt, do you want to tell the story of how we met and decided to write Lara?
We met rather serendipitously through a mutual friend called Ric, who we both knew from London. We had a couple of glasses of wine and started talking about the mad success of 50 Shades, and both being authors we thought, hey, we should totally write the next erotic fiction! But we couldn’t do it without laughing, so it kind of turned into a project we shot back and forth over the course of a few months, until we had something real… a funny, adventurous tale of a woman looking for love in all the wrong and slightly ridiculous places. It was never really a decision to write it… it just kind of flowed to the end and before we knew it, we had a book we both loved writing and reading back. We really hope everyone else gets as much fun out of it as we did.
What was it like to write a book with another person?
Awesome! It was actually really easy writing with Sarah, because she has the same (slightly weird) sense of humour and I think we just knew where each other was going… say if I had an idea and didn’t quite know how to make it work, Sarah would wrap it up, and vice versa. It helps to be on the same mental wavelength as someone when you’re writing, I can’t imagine writing a book with say, an elderly man, or an actual teenager, the differences would be too great and it wouldn’t be fun. Like you’re supposed to know when you’ve met ‘the one’ I think Sarah and I knew that each was ‘the one’ in writing terms. Haha! She’s my writing lobster 😉
Some of the more crazy stories in the book (like the Arab prince who is imprisoned in a replica Bel Air mansion in the middle of the Dubai desert because his family are so ashamed that he’s gay) are actually true…tell me more about that?
Oh yes! I used to live in Dubai (which is what my first non-fiction book Burqalicious is about) and I heard about this poor gay Arab who wasn’t allowed to ever leave his house. He also had a waterslide and ridiculous amounts of money, so that eventually became the character CP, who befriends Lara. I never actually met this guy in real life but you can just imagine the sort of stuff he might get up to in that house, all alone in the desert. It was the perfect base on which to build another adventure for Lara.
In the book, Lara travels all around the world delivering random packages to some very entertaining characters – what’s the most memorable place you’ve been to on your travels?
I would probably say Bali because I lived there for 8 months last year, and it really had an effect on me, not least because it’s where I met Sarah. There’s a definite magic there, something that makes you believe that anything is possible. I also recently fell in love with Cartagena in Colombia. It’s a fairy tale city within the old walls, full of bright flower-covered balconies and horses and carts trotting on cobblestones. Colombia in general is one of the most amazing countries I’ve ever visited – every day there was exciting and the people are beautiful. Especially the men.
If you were Lara where would you like to travel, with what package and for whom?
Oooh, good question. Hmm. I think I’d like to deliver some sort of secret proof of alien existence back in an old episode of The X Files, to the sexy Fox Mulder (he was soooo hot in season one). I think he’d fall in love with me instead of Scully and we’d have fun dashing through the universe on our home made spaceship. Of course, this would also require a time machine.
Tell me about your other books…
Well Burqalicious is the first one – set in Dubai. It’s a non-fiction travel memoir of what it was really like working for a celebrity mag/website during the boom. I dated a Muslim man and basically had what you’d call a dream life for a while, but it didn’t all work out that great in the end. The second one, Balilicious is also a non-fiction memoir of living in Bali, hanging with the Eat Pray Lovers but also really getting to grips with local culture and customs (and sexy divers in the Gili Islands). I had an amazing time there and learnt so much. The third is what I’m still writing now in South America. Latinalicious. That will be out this December.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
I would say write. Don’t just think it, do it. Every day. And don’t ever let anyone stomp on your dreams. I think for both Sarah and me, writing sort of comes naturally. If we don’t do it, we feel like we’re wasting time. I think if you have a passion and ambition and more than that sometimes, a great idea, you shouldn’t let anything stop you, least of all yourself. Go for it.
What next for you and Lola Salt?
More books, hopefully. We’re planning a sequel to Lara featuring her friend Lucy and it’s sounding hilarious so far. Stay tuned!
Last night was the first time in three years I’ve cried because I missed home. I had a craving for fields. Yes fields. And woods. And the smell of bonfires. And strawberries. Summer and autumn sights and smells. So if you dropped me back in the UK right now I’d swear at the cold and the snow and get back on the next plane, tossing my rose-tinted glasses into the bin on the way.
But most of all I was crying for my family and friends.
An email from my brother triggered it. Talk of my nieces and nephews. An email from my best friend too, with the butterfly heart-beating possibility that she might be coming to visit in March. The hope of that being tempered by the possibility she may not, just squeezed my emotions in such a way I burst into tears. OK, there was also the fact of a tax bill I have no idea how I’m going to pay. It had been a hard week.
Hard in that after three years, John and I are still finding our feet here financially. We walked out of well-paid jobs into a life of instability but outrageous potential. To pick yourself up from nothing and get back to a state of feeling comfortable takes a lot of hard work or a lottery win.
Though maybe that’s the point. Maybe ‘comfortable’ is not a place I subconsciously want to reside in. Being uncomfortable makes me work hard, push boundaries, try new things, keep trying new things when the first ones fail, keep throwing stuff at the wall in the hopes that one day something will stick. Would comfortable equal lazy and complacent? It’s a possibility.
My mum asked in an email ‘why not come home?’ and even through my tears (some now of guilt) I smiled and shuddered. Because even though I miss fields and strawberries (Kintamani ones have nothing on English ones) and bonfires and family and friends I could never move back there.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t been here. I have days where I hate Bali (the days when I’m told that ‘no your hard drive still hasn’t arrived from Singapore because it’s been diverted via Surabaya and now they’re holding it back until we pay a bribe’…the days when the internet fails for no reason and it takes a week before anyone can fix it…the days when I’m told I have a black magic curse on me) sure. But 99% of the time I love it here. And that’s not just because I don’t have to do the dishes.
I love who Alula is here. I love the world she gets to grow up in – this magical TV-free, advertising-free place where she is so, so happy. Never has a 6 year old child been so innocent. She’s growing into a conscious, kind, generous, empathetic and wildly imaginative child, as at home in a developing Asian world as in a first world city, able to flit between an American and English accent before ordering a juice in Bahasa.
Yesterday she said to us ‘I love living in Bali’ before skipping off to play among the butterflies.
I love that just as Alula gets to be creative and explore her imagination 100% of the time, so do I.
I love that John’s creativity has soared and he’s poured it into two incredible new businesses to inspire others’ creativity and connection.
I love the friends we have made here – all passionate, creative and entrepreneurial.
The word I keep coming back to is creativity. And the more I reflect on it the more I realize that for me, creativity has become a central component of living. It’s one of the main things that now gives my life meaning. Not always happiness that’s for sure, but definitely meaning. I see it give meaning to John and to Alula every single day as well. This is how we live now. We can’t ever go back from that. It’s inconceivable.
Which isn’t to say you can’t be creative in the UK. But it’s a hell of a lot harder. It would be something we squeezed in between going to work, doing the dishes and prising Alula away from CBBC.
This place is where we get to explore outrageous possibilities unfettered and unhindered, supported by the energy and people around us. So no, we’re not moving back to the UK.
While so much potential has been fulfilled there’s still so much ahead of us.
I’m super excited to share the news that my first adult book is out now!
It’s published under the pen name Lola Salt and it’s a comedy romance. Think Bridget Jones if Jackie Collins wrote it.
It’s a collaboration with the fabulous Becky Wicks. We met when Becky was in Bali writing a travel memoir and, over a bottle of wine and a rant about 50 Shades, we decided to have a go at writing erotica – I mean, how hard could it be?
Turns out, very. We giggled too much writing the naughty scenes, so eventually we decided to quit trying to write erotica and stick with comedy…and so The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) was born. We sent our Lara off on a series of adventures, mostly inspired by actual events that had occurred to me and Becky. We even had Lara visiting the Island of the Gods where I had particular fun drawing from all the whack job crazy folks I’ve met over the last three years. Obviously, for the record, it’s ALL A WORK OF FICTION, ahum.
Here’s the Blurb:
When ex-circus employee Lara Craft is dumped for a contortionist, there’s no point in sticking around. Delivering packages to random global corners for a mysterious concierge company seems like the perfect way to hide from her humiliation.
As she travels, a suitcase full of whips and props might well prepare Lara for proposals by Arabic princes, advances from Christian cowboys and kidnappings by pirates, but nothing can prepare Lara Craft (not Croft) for what happens when she discovers that the best and most exciting thing about her life is right where she least expected to find it.
And you can buy it from AMAZON in every country NOW!
And follow us on Twitter @LolaSalt
And to wet your appetite further, some of our favorite lines from the book, including this one which actually happened to me in Bali:
“I hope you’ll stay for Blissology?’ the man suddenly said, grabbing for her hand.
‘For what?’
Davidoff smiled serenely at her. ‘I’m a holistic escort. I have a PHD in Blissology from the Maharishi Kundalini University of Carlsbad. I’m about to hold a session.’
‘Right,’ said Lara. ‘What do you do exactly?’
‘Well, I interpret our human purpose by looking at quantum physics, an individual’s astrological alignments and the I Ching.’
‘And what does that mean exactly in English,’ she questioned, feeling herself zoning out.”
—
“This isn’t just any shirt,’ he told her. ‘This shirt was worn by he-who-must-not-be-named in the first of the Twilight films.’
Lara’s mouth fell open. She blinked several times. What was he talking about? Voldemort wasn’t even in Twilight.”
—
“Somehow, perhaps because of the way he spoke in a manner reminiscent of Jack Bauer from 24, Lara calmed down.
She repeated his words in her head. Wait. Assess. Intel. Yes, OK, that sounded sensible.
Then the hysterical coward in her reared up unannounced and she tried to run for the door again.”
—
“Don’t you want to find your purpose?’
Lara glared at her. ‘Right now my purpose is to get the hell out of here and then I’ll figure the rest of it out the normal way; by drinking vodka. Or maybe I’ll read Eat, Pray, Love all the way through…”
—
“He took her around the place, pointing out the hybrids and divulging a few of their clients. Lara could barely believe so many celebrities she knew were actually sick and in need of medical marijuana. She tried to make a mental note of their names but knew she’d forget them later, given that she’d already forgotten her own middle name.”
“I am never, as long as I live, stepping foot in Kuta ever again. EVER!’ I tell John after a day at Kuta’s new and glitziest mall ‘Beachwalk’ which should come with a sign saying: ‘check your soul at the door.’
I should have known to be suspicious when I took Alula to the loos – brand spanking new and already the locks were falling off, the floor was some weird fake brick linoleum and there were signs warning people not to squat on the toilet seats (actually Alula does need reminding because once a colonic therapist told her she should squat to poo, so she does. Everytime*). But you know what I’m saying. The place is like Hugh Heffner – from the outside it’s had a lot of work done, enough to attract the young and big breasted, looking for some glamorous times, but once you get past the dubious cosmetic work it’s gross and shoddy and corrupted on the inside.
Beachwalk was filled with crazed holiday makers. Who goes on holiday to shop in a mall that has all the same brands as you can get in your home town at more expensive prices? Who does that? Who, in fact, goes on holiday to Kuta? WHO???? My brain demanded an answer to this seemingly unfathomable question. If you holiday in Kuta please for the love of GOD email me and tell me why.
Back to the mall. There was this tinny elevator music which pierced my brain like blunt fork tines. Repeatedly. Violently. Until I wanted to smack a real fork repeatedly into my ear drums to make it stop.
Every single shop assistant had been replaced with manic robots programmed to bounce up to you at the door, grin and then follow you, standing over your shoulder as you tried to browse. And most annoyingly, none of them had been programmed to understand that the subtle subtext of ‘I’m good thanks’ is actually ‘Fuck the fuck off.’
I was not feeling the Christmas cheer. I was feeling like I wanted to hurl myself into the three-inch deep pond and drown myself. And then the choir started up and I almost did.
Alula of course wanted to play in the hellzone. Sorry Kidzone. Where a water feature had been set up with one stinking toilet changing room beside it. John and I stood frozen in mutual horror at the chlorinated, hazlight lit area, ringed on all sides by plexiglass. The shudder rode up my spine.
‘Why is this so grim?’ I shouted to John over the screaming competing Guantanamo soundtracks of techno pop and arcade game back noise.
‘Because it smells like a UK swimming pool.’
‘Oh yeah.’
Alula was undeterred and went careering in. There weren’t even any seats for parents to watch.
So I do want I normally do in times like these – look for booze. There was none. So I do want I normally do in times like these when there’s no booze. I grabbed my Kindle and immersed myself in a book, thanking god for authors for creating worlds I can escape into (even worlds involving murder and psychotic drug-fuelled crime sprees) – worlds that are infinitely nicer than Beachwalk.
Alula then needed a wee. I hustled her into the ONLY ladies toilet for the entire ground floor food court. And guess what? There were only three cubicles. The queue was out the door.
‘This is because stupid men designed this stupid hell hole,’ I hissed to Alula while people started edging away from me in the line. ‘Only a man would think to design a mall with only three toilets for women. A stupid man or a woman-hating stupid man. Either way said stupid man should be forced to lie down while all the women in this place who need a pee squat on his head.’
I left that mall loathing in no particular order: men, Christmas, shopping, consumerism, elevator music, Topshop and the whole world.
Tis the season to be merry. Good will to all men.
Bah humbug. And screw you Beachwalk.
* I feel the need to make clear that I did not take Alula for a colonic. We had a friend who was a colonic therapist (is that the word? It sort of suggests your back bottom needs its own black leather couch and some trauma counselling). She told Alula the correct way to poo was by squatting, so now she always crouches on the toilet seat for number twos. Combine that with the fact at Green School she is used to using a compost toilet with no flush and you can picture what our toilet looks like at home after she’s done with it.**
**I’m sure she’s going to really appreciate this being in print when she’s an adult. Sorry darling.
Today is the kind of day that makes me just want to curl up in bed and close my eyes and tune out until tomorrow comes.
Except if I did that today would find a way to fuck me over while I slept. An earthquake would hit and the ceiling would collapse on the bed, or I don’t know…something would inevitably happen just so today could prove to me that all I am is a plaything of the Gods…
It’s funny because last night I went to this inspirational talk by someone who died once upon a time and lost an arm in a car crash and now gives motivational speeches about counting our blessings. He even had the whole room on their feet as he strummed a guitar with his bionic hand, singing a song that went ‘I am blessed…I am blessed’ (very Kumbayah). And I went home thinking, yeah I am blessed, and singing it into my pillow.
And it’s like the Gods wanted to LAUGH in my face or something at my naivete (or maybe they didn’t like my singing) so they connived all night to make this day suck in order to teach me a lesson.
First off I wake up and realize that I have work to do. Now I’m not a work shirker. I work my ass off and I don’t complain because I LOVE my job (my author job that is). But lately I’ve been having to do copywriting to pay the bills because NEWSFLASH all you deluded folk out there who think authors make money WE DON’T (so if you are one of the many who download my books illegally I really, really hope that karma comes and bites you on the ass one day).
The long and the short of it is that I’m stuck writing copy about man boobs and retro bikinis and liposuction and honest to GOD about Hulk Hogan in neon spandex. Google that. Most likely I wrote it.
Seriously. I’m having to earn money for food by selling my soul and writing copy about celebs in speedos. Some days I actually contemplate just not eating ever again and keeping my integrity intact, but then I get a reminder about the school fees.
John and I sip our coffee and discuss the perennial problem we have; namely money and earning enough to stay in Bali and drink green juice. Green School fees don’t come cheap, rents have almost doubled, the cost of living is not peanuts here (SHHHHHHHH I don’t want to hear it about the pedicure obsession. I’ve cut back) and we have to fly home every summer to see family. Anyway boohoo I hear you say, you live in Paradise…and you’re right. I should quit complaining. I don’t have a bionic arm.
Kumbayah.
But we keep wondering when the time will come that we can make a good living from doing the things we love (ie. Not sourcing images of David Hasselhoff showing off his floatie). Is that day ever going to come? Our biggest risk – quitting our jobs in London – was rewarded almost instantly. It made us think we were invincible.
Now we contemplate a second jump off the precipice. Should we start saying no to work we don’t love, trusting the universe will leap in and fill the gap? I want to believe. I do. But judging by day I’ve just had I think the universe right now just wants me to do that so it can laugh in my face when I slice myself open on the jagged rocks below.
Evidence 1: John bought me a lovely new nail polish – Chanel – gorgeous. I am carrying it downstairs and drop it. It plunges 30feet and smashes on the kitchen floor below. There are crime scenes with less splatter. And blood hoses off. Nail varnish doesn’t. (I acknowledge that by sitting on the kitchen floor dipping the brush in the splatter and painting my nails in order to at least get some worth from it, I didn’t help matters when it came to trying to clear it up.)
Goddamn it. Glass splinters in my knees, ruined nails and my entire bottle of nail polish remover used up trying to scrub off pink streaks from the tiles and kitchen cabinets.
Evidence 2: I’ve spent about 50 hours editing my third Fated book on my Kindle. I switch on my Kindle this morning and every single edit note has vanished. What? Mercury isn’t even retrograde. I hate you Kindle. You suck more balls than John Travolta.
You see where I’m going with this?
Yes. That’s right. To the cupboard that contains the gin.
ps. I know, I know…I really don’t have anything to complain about. I’m just having a winge. Humour me.
I love Thanksgiving. I mean I’ve never sat down and had a Thanksgiving dinner or anything but as celebrations go, Thanksgiving seems to me to be one of the better American traditions. It beats Christmas (stress of present buying, annoying Christmas tunes on the radio, Queen’s speech) and Easter (guilt at eating chocolate to celebrate a man being crucified) and Halloween (shit I have to come up with another costume). Thanksgiving seems a lot more humble and honest. Less consumer driven. And less costume-focussed.
Anyway, even though we’re not American, Alula is starting to sound like one and we’re the only British people we know in town, so I’m going all out and adopting Thanksgiving this year.
Here’s my list of things I’m thankful for:
1. Living in Bali not South East London
I give thanks every single day (as I machete open coconuts and stare at the rice paddies and order up another massage) that we live here. I drive John mad by my daily announcement; ‘Can you believe we live here, that this is our life? We could still be living in Beckenham you know…(pause for horror to sink in)?’ I feel incredibly blessed we have found this unique and magical spot on the globe.
2. For having a husband who believed in outrageous potential
John and I often comment on how we wouldn’t be here without the other. I had the urge to travel and have adventures but John was the one who ultimately suggested we cut the safety net tying us to jobs and country and just go and see what happened. He’s the one who tirelessly believed in outrageous potential…while I’d ask him every five minutes in those early months ‘are we going to be OK?’
His unfailing ability to nod and say yes saw us through some lean months (as did his ability to nab amazing design jobs all around the world and therefore keep us afloat as my meager writing advances trickled in).
3. For having fans!
Yeah! Really! I get fan mail. Me. Actual fan mail. Really lovely, gushy letters from people who’ve read my books and think they’re the best things since sliced bread, and who go and tell all their friends to read them too! It’s amazing. And everyday when I wake up to them I smile because what a wonderful incredible thing! Except if it’s another one from the stalker who’s turning into a miniature Kathy Bates. But hey ho, can’t have everything. And it really is incredible to make a living from doing something that makes people so happy!
4. For having a daughter like Alula
With her Scooby Doo obsession and incredible imagination who fights with passion and loves with intensity and laughs like a witch and who at just 6 turned to me after I made a wish for ‘love, joy and abundance’ and said, ‘But mummy, we have all those things! You wasted a wish!’
5. For family & friends
This year has been a year of friendships – from meeting up in New York with dear friends to hanging in London with oldies and besties, and seeing family and nephews and new niece and collaborating from afar with fellow writers. I love it that as I grow older my friendship circles grow and bloom too, rather than withering and dying as I think can often happen. (And if any of you read this, my birthday is Sunday and what I would adore more than anything is an email from each and everyone of you so I don’t start to miss you too much.)
Also grateful for: ice cream, cacao pow balls, being given the chance to work on the Hunting Lila screenplay, selling two more books, dancewalk buddies, pilates, chocolate, coconuts and massage.
canwelivehere.com 