Why Not Bali?

Bali is beautiful. Bali is the paradise mentioned in the Bible, I'm sure of it. Butterflies the size of dinner plates fly through our living room. Every afternoon, flurries of dragonflies dance in the air just outside our bedroom balcony. The sunrises each morning splatter the skies with innocent hues of pink and blue. The sunrises and sunsets are not like the violent bright Los Angeles skies, simply because Bali doesn’t have the smog that induces such intensity.

So why do I not want to live here? We were like almost every other Expat or traveling family we have met here: at some point we stopped by for a weekend, then we went home to get the rest of our belongings so could move in, acting much like stereotypical lesbians on a first date.

And I was one of them, not the first weekend we spent in Bali last November, but this visit we started mid-April. After six months in Singapore, I told Kent I was done living in hot climates. I had been fantasizing about Seattle, Sweden and sweaters since I arrived in Singapore and watched my zinc oxide sunscreen melt off my body. Upon arrival in Bali, it rained for four days straight. It actually got cool enough for me to put on a long sleeved t-shirt. I took it personally, thinking the tropical skies were atoning for the heated wrongs they had thrown down on me for the previous six months.

Even as the rain eased up and we hit some of the weather that Bali supposedly gets in their dry season, the heat still wasn’t as hellish as Singapore. Plus, in Bali, lush green rice paddies and trees that Singapore only has in its botanical gardens surround us. Sitting on my bedroom balcony with the afternoon breeze rustling the leaves is its own spa experience. We also found Fyo a great (and cheap) playgroup where for three hours and five dollars, he can finger paint and play with other kids to his heart’s content. And his school has a summer program. We also found a part-time nanny for sixty US dollars a month.

Our favorite thing about Bali? Honestly, I think is that it is tropical, a tad exotic but has several of the comforts of home, mainly great cheap take out and delivery. We can stuff ourselves silly on sushi, have a beer and it won’t cost over twenty dollars. In our current house, every week to ten days, we have ten coconuts delivered to our door. In the afternoons, the gardener (who came with the house) hacks one open and sticks the coconut water and meat in the fridge. I am drinking one coconut’s worth of water every day.

So again, why do I not want to live here? When did I change my mind? I must be insane. I do love it, and Kent and I are agreed that it will always be a favorite spot: one where we could easily have a home. Except then we think, why go to the trouble and expense of building our own house? It’d be easier to rent someone else’s for six months of every year.

I don't remember an exact moment I realized that while Bali may be a home, it will not be the home, or the place we have all our belongings plus two dogs shipped to (not that we haven't talked about it). It was just a feeling that slowly crept up on me as I rode my bike down our path with rice paddies on both sides, or driving past temples and roadside offerings. It started as a whisper saying, it's beautiful, but I don't know that this is it. Then the whisper became louder and more definitive, nope, this isn't home, at least not at the moment.

Honestly, at the moment, even though Bali is seeing the wettest dry season they have ever encountered (thank you global warming and climate change), I again am craving sweaters and Seattle-like weather. But I should explain myself – when I say Kent and I are not coming back in the fall, my friends here do look at me like I just announced I was going ice camping at the North Pole. Granted, these are also friends who tan easily and evenly. Friends as fair as I am kind of get it.

I can’t help it. I miss seasons – actual seasons. Not seasons that have been dictated by the Fashion Industry, where the only way you know it is December is because the Gap is selling sweaters even though the equator is within spitting distance. I miss the light that comes as one season transitions to the other. I can enjoy the heat, but my enjoyment is predicated on the fact that it doesn’t last forever and that before long, it will be cooler with the leaves turning colors and then, finally cold. Also, with seasons, come a wider variety of food in terms of fruits and vegetables, and foods that have to be savored, because next week might be past their peak. I find beauty, rejuvenation and even a higher quality of life in the ephemeral. The fruit in Bali is divine, but when you can get it all the time, it no longer startles your taste buds into ecstatic appreciation.
I also miss the movement of the sun – not throughout the day, but throughout the year as it makes the days longer and shorter. In Singapore, the sun rose and set at the same time every single day. It’s kind of creepy in a way. Every day is the same, much like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. In Bali, there is a slight difference, but not much. We’re only 8 degrees south of the equator after all. Occasionally, when I say this to a friend, they say, "Oh, I am so glad you said so. I miss seasons too."


In my defense, I can only say I am not wired for year around heat and tropical living. I come by it honestly given my family’s genealogy is primarily Scot and Swede. Also, I was raised in Portland, Oregon, which is known for its rain and mild weather. I have wished I was one of those people who can live in sun year round, but the truth is the constant heat wears on me after while. I can feel my skin protesting when I pick up the sunscreen in the morning. I must, I insist to my skin cells, you are fair and I just have had one sunburn too many. So I put on my sunscreen, and my skin cells roll their eyes. They feel tired and dry and like a snake’s skin before its shed.

When I was in Bangkok, I had my fortune told by a Thai fortune teller at the Wat Pho temple. I had been suspecting that I am just not wired for the heat. My Thai fortune teller confirmed this. He pointed to the sky and said, “This weather is not good for you.”
“I know.” I said.
“You need mild temperatures, cooler, close to mountains and water. Colorado is good for you. San Francisco is good for you. Hot is not.”
“Exactly.” I said.

I really don’t know how else to say it, except that it just feels like my body has to work harder to function, much like what many people feel when they’re at altitude. After living in LA for a year, Kent and I went to San Francisco – in September. We had to buy wool felt hats, we were so cold. But just walking outside, I instantly felt like I could breathe. This is probably completely wrong as I have no actual knowledge of the workings of the physical body, but it felt like the very cells of my body could relax and work efficiently.

So then, where to next?

Ah, this requires checking the horoscope. Do not laugh, it is eerie how often Susan Miller at astrologyzone.com is dead on. Sure enough, skimming our Capricorn and Aries horoscopes, the planets are in our home sectors. Time, Susan says, to create where we want to live, and not to settle, to choose only our first choice.

Needless to say, the brainstorming has begun. I pulled out the map. In my twenties, I would close my eyes and throw my finger down to see where it landed. Now, I have given guidelines, no place between the Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn, in fact, nothing below 40 degrees latitude. This year, I want to experience fall and winter. I want a reason to buy boots.