For two and a half months, I lived on old cremation grounds beside a sacred Balinese river. The building was purchased decades ago by an Australian artist who has since converted it into the home that she raised her family in. The entire property is a work of art. Every surface – the long driveway to the car park, every floor, every pillar, every ceiling – is covered in mosaic art. Flowers, scarabs, snakes, dolphins and tigers exist in every space that you do, their faces emerging through thoughtful piecing together of hundreds of pieces of broken tile. It is an explosion of color, a feat of creativity. 

Just beside the home flows a sacred river. It has an energy of its own, powerful and peaceful. Normally, it’s a blue-green color and so clear that you can see the bottom even in the deeper parts. It flows steadily and strongly towards the ocean which is only a couple hundred meters ahead. The ocean tide and river know each other well, every day they play tug of war.

Every day in the late afternoon, local men fish for dinner on the opposite river bank from the house. Up river a ways, more men gather in the evenings to wash themselves. Throughout the day, monitor lizards the sizeof dogs swim up and sown the river, their tails propelling them powerfully though the water, their eyes and noses just above the surface. Groups of swallows chase insects in the air above, often diving down for sips of water mid-flight. Like everything around and within it, this river is alive.

My days here are slow and peaceful. I am staying here with someone I’d come to love very much and each moment is meaningful. We wake up early because we fell asleep early the night before. Beating the sun to rise, we walk outside and stretch the sleep out of our bodies. Barefoot, we walk through the garden, stopping to check on plants we’ve taken special interest in – recently planted frangipani clippings, a rose bush, a cactus, a baby avocado tree. We interfere on the plant’s behalf when necessary, brushing pests off new growth and picking weeds that have sprouted overnight. We tear vines off of the house. Every few days they try to climb the walls, seeking sunlight. I notice that the trees on the riverbank across the house don’t have such luck. They stand, grand and defenseless, and vine intruders wrap around their trunks, ultimately stretching out across the tree’s branches – stealing sunlight.

Just when we finish our wander around the garden, the sun rises and life wakes along with it. Butterflies and birds take to the sky, monitor lizards begin their morning activities along the river bank, and insects crawl out of their nests. The neighbor’s chickens peck through the garden searching for bugs for breakfast. They spend most of their time where the grass was mowed yesterday – easy pickings. 

We make our way to the river before the sun gets too high and the heat comes. We bring a longboard with us and both get on – me on the front of the board and him on the back – and push out to the middle of the river. We watch the swallows above us dance with each other while our feet float in the water. When it’s time to get in, one of us or the other flips the board and we fall off at the same time, our laughs cut short as our heads dip underwater. We resurface wiping water from our eyes and smiling as our board floats steadily downstream. We swim to it and climb back on to enjoy the morning sun a bit longer. The tide pulls us up and down stream and the river current delivers flowers on the surface of the water to our board. I pick them from the water and hold them, little gifts from the river herself. 

Soon, we make our way back to the shore. Afternoon is approaching quickly and the mid-day heat is almost unbearable. It’s the type of heat that drains you of all your vitality, leaving you with no option but to find somewhere cool to rest and be still. We oblige, but not before lunch. 

We eat lunch at the same place every day except Sunday because it’s closed. It’s Padang cuisine. The place is small and simple: a pink building, one room, three tables, nine chairs. There’s a refrigerator sitting against the left wall, stocked with tea and soda, and a small sink beside it. A glass display case facing the road holds food, each dish presented in its own ceramic bowl sitting on one of two shelves. The words “WARUNG MUSLIM: BU DANY” are written in red letters on the case. Bu Dany runs the shop and she is here every day. She is kind and warm and she smiles a lot. She exudes positivity and light, and her energy fills up the space. You can taste the care that she puts into her food. It’s the best food I’ve ever had. 

I order the same thing every day: a sambal chicken leg, curry chicken breast, beef rendang, roasted eggplant, steamed vegetables, cassava leaves, and two potato cakes. It is served as a heaping pile over rice on a banana leaf. I eat with my right hand just as everyone else does. Eating with my hand is a new skill I’ve picked up since being here, and I’m much better at it now than I was when I first started learning. It feels good to learn something new. 

Other customers come and go as we eat. Some order food to-go and some sit at tables near us. Everyone talks to each other in Indonesian. I don’t understand much except the few basic words I’ve learned since being here. But I smile anyways, I am happy to be here and it doesn’t matter that I can’t understand what is being said. Only when I am the topic of conversation does it get translated for me. Everyone laughs at how I can’t handle spicy food, and how I order more food than almost any other customer and always manage to finish everything on my plate. “It’s the best food I’ve ever had.” For the most part, I sit there and eat with my hand and listen to the chat around me. I smile when everyone smiles, and laugh when they laugh. I don’t always know what’s funny but I like seeing everyone so happy. It is moments like these that give life meaning. 

After a filling meal, we return to the house on the river in search of shade. We’ve worked up a sweat after lunch and it’s time to hide until the heat dies down. I read, write or watch TV until late-afternoon. By then, it’s cool enough to go back outside. We return to the river with the board and paddle towards the ocean this time, stopping just before the river-mouth to pull the board onto the bank. From here, we walk down the beach over huge masses of wood that have been washed ashore in piles. We search for treasures among the mess – unique pieces of wood to carry back to the house. We challenge each other to contests as we walk, balancing sticks vertically on our palms, racing, using bamboo sticks to bat large seeds back into the water they came from. We say hi to other beach-goers walking their dogs. Sometimes we sit for a conversation. When we reach the end of the beach we jump in and let the waves wash over us before we start our walk back. On the way back I use long sticks of bamboo to trace giant circles in the sand and we walk playfully beside the waves. 

The sun sinks lower, eventually lighting up the entire sky with color. Pinks and oranges, yellows, purples and blues. The very air around us picks up color, and everything is bathed in light. We watch as clouds move slowly – mountains of water in the sky. I stretch my arms out and feel small. And grateful. My skin is covered with sand and my hair is wet with salt water. I am barefoot on an island bearing witness to something beautiful. And tomorrow, I get to do it all again.