One suitcase, no plan

For close to a decade now Hal and I have kept rebounding to Indonesia. It’s become part of our shared story, I can’t explain exactly why.  Something about the landscapes, food, and people --the friendly and relaxed attitude to life—has gotten under our skin. An itch that needs to be scratched.

Rather than shift restlessly between locations like harried tourists on an annual culture binge, each journey we have chosen to become immersed in a project. Slipping into a new way of living seems to offer up more important secrets than skipping around like an owl-eyed TripAdvisor reviewer.

In 2009 we spent nine months volunteering on conservation and cultural projects in Ubud, Bali. Yes that ever changing traveller’s nirvana, made ever more famous as the destination of “Eat, Pray, Love” where Liz Gilbert (played by Julia Roberts) finally gets laid. She could have found all three realities in that one hillside village.

Think cramped offices in unbelievable gardens, tropical nights robed in equatorial darkness. A crumbling pantheon of silent Hindu temple gods,  interrupted by the rendered slickness of six star villas slowly sucking the deep rivers dry. The blend of modern and ancient that makes up life in much of Asia today. 

This time, a quiet, steady voice within says ‘wait’. Chastens me to slow down to the speed of Indonesia (a measured dilatoriness) and to not put my hand up for a project, nor map out a list of achievements to tick off. I do the opposite of what I usually would do. I alight off the Garuda Airbus with a packed suitcase and an empty agenda. 

Travel affords the possibility of a great many things. For me it has always offered insights into the intimate workings of life, as much as the chance for adventure and sightseeing. With Hal’s humanitarian project providing more than enough reason for going, this trip is a perfect opportunity to put my theories of mindfulness into practice. 

So I come to Java with a plan to eschew all plans. To do nothing pre-arranged, and simply wake up each day and see what the morning brings.

Surprisingly this is more difficult than I’d imagined.

For starters, there’s a not entirely inaccurate belief that others will perceive I’m plain idle. Add to that my deep seated need to feel productive – something that is both personal and cultural.

First discovery: To be completely free of responsibilities is both weird, and guilt-laden.

Of course it feels wonderful to escape the normal routine of life at home—and enter the exotic otherness, the topsy-turvy multi-sensory bombardment that is living in an utterly foreign culture.

I make the deliberate decision to stay out here by the rice fields. The work of the traditional farmers is laborious and as lean as the old villagers we see riding around on their Dutch-era bikes. Yet there is comforting chatter in their early morning routines.

I begin to observe the farmers gather outside our window each morning joking amicably as their bare feet follow the furrows of their sawah.  I wonder what us Westerners have lost generations ago when we became urbanized and orphaned from nature and the land that sustains us.

Away from hyperventilated rush and adrenaline pulse of the city, in this small village called Tembi, is the perfect opportunity to allow life to unfold in its own unbridled pace. As I mediate from the deck of our bungalow, time is nothing more or less than swaying rows of emerald rice stretching out invitingly —my morning panorama.

I should be as happy as a plump cherub in heaven.  But my ingrained habits ambush me and I can’t resist signing up for a couple of tasks that fate inevitably asks. And then a few more. Intensive language lessons, learning batik, writing a travel guide to Jogja for the bungalows, volunteering my time as editor and writer.

Somehow getting up early for class feels more onerous when the rest of my time is so free. Planting my butt in front of my under-sized tablet computer irks me. I begin to regret offering to edit grant applications and help a local student with their environmental thesis. I want to help but I'm resisting being jammed up against my keyboard once more. Strapped to that contorted qwerty universe, I'm as yoked as a bullock in a pen.

Here is my dilemna: while having nothing to do feels like an oddly unfurnished room, doing anything goal oriented also begins to feel stifling and infuriating. I drive Hal and myself nuts for a few days.

Thankfully nature thwacks you on the head a little more often here. Minor earthquakes, torrential downpours, chorusing frogs and a phenomenal volcanic ash fall. In our little corner of Java, it’s hard to get caught up in introspection for too long.

Interrupted by a breeze, my head bobs up to glimpse the sudden appearance of grains of rice dusting the fields, signaling a new phase -- one that is gently delivering me back to myself.

With a few intriguing bumps along the way.