My twenty-three month old son, Fyo, sits in his car seat in the car while my husband and I sit up front in our drive to the playground by my parents’ house.
“Water, please.” He says. I hand him his water bottle. He sips on it and when he’s done, he hands it forward and says, “Thank you.”
At the playground, Fyo climbs the ladders by himself while my husband and I just spot him. He slides himself down the slide and runs towards the swing.
My friends have told me that at two years old, your child still has some baby-ness that your baby doesn’t fully disappear until the age of four.
I don’t believe them.
I look at my walking talking son who is now his own person with opinions and views of how he wants to do things. All I see is little boy. When he wants my attention, he calls Mom or he says “thank you” repeatedly or he says that he has to pee. When he’s hungry he asks for grapes, strawberries, carrots and biscuits. He picks out the clothes he wants to wear. He takes off his clothes and runs down the hallway naked and then back to the bedroom where he snuggles himself into bed and under the covers.
“Are you cold?” I ask him.
“Yes.” He says.
“Do you want some pajamas?” I ask him.
“No.” And with that he goes to sleep in the middle of the bed, covers around his shoulders.
Probably my friends are right, and this is one of those tricks of perception that happen when you have children. When I visit my friend and her four-month old baby girl, we talk about how at four-months, it seems impossible that babies will grow into the twenty-three month old child wandering around her house with a knack for finding gallon sized containers of household chemicals. Probably when my son is four I will see how much more baby-ness has disappeared and think then that he is really all little boy.
I hold my friend’s baby girl. She has that baby smell and soft skin and baby duck hair that I can’t help but nuzzle with my nose like I did with my own baby boy. I love every phase of my son’s life, but the first few months of his infancy remain my very favorite. Fyo sees me holding the baby; he comes over and leans in to give the baby a kiss. Then he asks to sit on my lap. I then nuzzle his hair. He smells like sun and outside and the strawberries he’s just eaten. His skin is still soft, but not infant soft. His knees, ankles and feet are dirty from playing outside.
When my friend and I drive back from the museum, both her baby and Fyo are in the back seat in their respective car seats. Her baby is tired and fussing to fall asleep. My friend is singing to her to calm her down as we drive. Eventually, she goes to sleep.
My friend looks in the rearview mirror at Fyo.
“Fyo? Can you see the baby?” She asks him.
“Yes.” He says.
“Is the baby asleep?”
“Yes.”
She looks in the mirror above the baby’s car seat.
“He’s right.” She says.
“Sing more.” Fyo says. We sing.
I turn back and look at him sitting in his seat smiling and waving his hands to the song. All I see is little boy. I remember once again that each phase comes with a bit of grieving the phase that just ended and excitement for the phase that is just beginning. I remember that I often feel both emotions at once.
We've been in the states now for just over two weeks - long enough to process and assimilate some of our experiences abroad and traveling. While we were still in Bali, our friend Natasha asked for our lists: the things we wouldn't miss, the things we would miss, the things we were looking forward to in coming home. We gave her our lists for the moment, but since being home we do have moments where we say "oh we don't miss that" or "oh I miss that part time nanny" or what have you, so I do think the time has given us a bit of perspective. Anyway, for Natasha...
The Top 5 Things I Will Not Miss:
1) Riding on a motorbike or the things that come with riding on a motorbike i.e. the bruised tailbone, shortened spine, bruised feet (when the path gets a little narrower than the driver realized and your foot goes under the tailpipe of another bike), or Kent yelling, "BUSH!" right before he drives through a piece of shrubbery.
2) Balinese drivers. Oh dear god. You can't even say that the Balinese shouldn't be given driver's licenses because as far as we could tell there is no actual Department of Motor Vehicles to give driver's licenses. I get that there are bad drivers everywhere. I even get that probably I am one of them. However, in Bali it is a entirely different realm of bad drivers. People drive cars as if they were motorbikes and they drive motorbikes as if they were cars. And if they happen to run you off the road and knock you off your motorbike while you are taking your son to school, they don't even apologize. In fact, they don't do anything - they don't move a muscle even when your husband is so angry he is yelling and cursing at them while you are so angry you can't even speak - you just want to cry. Also, in Bali, there's no insurance, so if they actually run you over or kill you, it's your bad karma coming to haunt you. I've ridden a push-bike in most the cities I've lived, and I don't know if I've had as many attempts on my life by other drivers as I had in Bali. When I got home, Kent would ask if I yelled obscenities at the other drivers, but I never did. I was too busy thanking God for my life.
3) Mosquitoes. Also won't miss mosquitoes, wasps, or bees the size of small birds.
4) Indonesian bathrooms:
a. I am not convinced of the superiority of the squat toilet. I hear the squatting position is better for giving birth and shitting, but I can't say I find it all that comfortable (for either task) so if it is better for you I don't care.
b. At first I loved the idea of the outdoor bathroom. I took pictures of our river rocked showers nestled in rock walls. I thought it would be romantic to take a bath and look up at the stars. It turns out there are several flaws to outdoor bathrooms even if they are beautiful; when it rains everything (towels, toilet, the clothes attempting to get dry) gets soaked. In some variations, the toilet gets doubly so by the rain falling as well as the accumulated water splashing off the roof (because for whatever reason the Balinese engineer who designed the bathroom didn't consider that when rain spilled over the roof it would drench the person who had the (undoubtedly karmic) misfortune to be sitting on the toilet while it rained. Outdoor bathrooms also tend to have mice and more mosquitoes - so that romantic bath under a night sky full of stars and the full moon isn't so romantic (unless you don't mind floating mosquito coils in your bath).
c. Because of the Muslim influence, most bathrooms have hoses next to the toilet. I never understood what exactly people do with those hoses, but whatever it is it leaves the entire bathroom soaking wet as if it just emerged from Noah's flood. Because my only footwear in Bali consisted of flip-flops, the soaking wet bathroom thing left me squeamish. Outings with my toilet training toddler became a miraculous feat as he may have told me he had to pee in time to get him to the toilet, but by the time I found a way to get the toilet seat dry or his clothes off without getting them wet from the floor, we had missed the opportunity. Ick.
5) Mold. I will not miss pulling a package of dry pasta out of the cupboard and finding it entirely covered in mold. I will not miss throwing my clothes in the hamper and having them mold by the time they get to the washer. I will not miss the moldy smell my clean clothes get when they just sit in the cupboard. I will not miss finding my child's toys covered with mold even though they have been sitting in the open air.
Alternates:
-The litter and the trash. This is the utterly heartbreaking thing about Bali. It is such a beautiful country with some of the most gorgeous scenery on the planet, but Indonesia doesn't have the infrastructure to manage trash removal or recycling programs. So people do like they've done for generations long before the introduction of plastic. When they just threw their banana leaf on the ground it was no big deal. Now that they have plastic, they treat it like their banana leaves, and sadly, it results in litter on the sides of roads, on sacred sites nestled in the mountains, in streams, and really just about everywhere you can imagine. Those that are "responsible" and do clean up their trash, burn it, which means they burn their plastics as well as their banana leaves and food scraps and they do so without a second thought about the smoke - or their children skipping around the fires. The health implications are a nightmare; we saw so many people (young and old) walking around with tumors and we could only imagine that they were the result of the environmental issues.
-Going without a car seat for Fyo. Not that we rode in a car often. But when we did with our toddler who just wanted to explore and practice shifting the gear shift, it was misery, because we could not just let him wander and explore the car. We had hold him still, and restraining an active toddler is never fun. I didn't think I would ever appreciate the car seat so much. (Though now that we've been back, we've learned that Fyo isn't the biggest fan of it. He's fine for short distances, but road trips aren't really in the cards for us at the moment.)
-One of the things we loved the most about Bali is how cheap things are, but one of the things that sucked is that because we are white and American and they assume wealthy (and even if we aren't we are by their standards) so often we paid (at least) double for things. Mostly, I don't mind paying what things are worth, but I get pissed when I get blatantly ripped off. On the side of the road, we could buy a litter bottle of water for 30 cents. When we got on the ferry not even a mile away, we assumed there would be some mark up because water is usually more expensive on modes of transportation and it was - locals had to pay the equivalent of 50 cents for a litter bottle of water. But when Kent wanted water, they charged him a dollar. Then laughed and talked about it and felt entitled in doing so. Never mind the mortar and pestle that locals could buy at the market for three dollars that I paid twenty-five dollars for.
The Top 5 Things I Will Miss
1. The cost of things. We have spent our first two weeks in the states in sticker shock. In Bali, we could add minutes to our phones for just a few dollars and it would last us the month. In Los Angeles, we wanted cell phones without having to get a one or two year plan since we have no idea where we're going to end up living. Kent spent half an hour staring at the list of options the man gave him - not because he thought the guy was trying to rip him off, but because the cost was so ridiculous for what they were offering and the cell phones companies make it so dang annoying to get a phone in the states. Or today I walked into Portland's New Seasons Market - one of the most beautiful grocery stores ever to grace the planet - for half and half, peanut butter, bacon and dog food. Fyo of course wanted his strawberries, grapes, I picked up a coffee, a few things for my grandmother whom we're staying with. I spent over a hundred dollars.
So we miss that about Bali, that we could order delivery and for less than five dollars, have two burritos delivered to the house. That I got my hair cut and colored and my eyebrows waxed for $28.00 (okay, I do admit my first haircut in Bali wasn't so good. But my second one is rather cute, and the color came out great.) That we had a part-time nanny for Fyo for $60 a month. Fyo's nursery school was seven dollars a day. (I really miss Fyo's school and I would give anything to find something of the same quality where ever we end up - or even in Portland with a similar drop-in policy for traveling famillies. I'd give even more to find something similar that didn't require him receiving financial aid to go there) I bought the most beautiful bag for $30.00. Oh, the list goes on. I'm a frugal girl. I like low cost of living.
2. Every week, we had ten coconuts and organic fresh vegetables delivered to our door. In the morning, we made smoothies with the coconut meat. We had a gardener who would daily whack open a coconut and put the coconut water in the fridge. I drank a coconut's worth of coconut water every day. Yum. And the eggplant too left me in heaven. Kent would saute slices of eggplant in olive oil, sprinkle salt on it and feta cheese. I could and would eat platefuls of it. Oh, I miss that.
3. I come from Portland, the micro brew capitol of the earth, and I'm not that much of a beer drinker, but for some reason (maybe because I was otherwise surrounded by shit beer) I developed an addiction to Bali's micro brew Storm. The Pale Ale. Just the smell of it is gorgeous. I ordered it whenever I saw it on the menu because it is a rarity. Once I even ordered it at eleven in the morning. Because I was addicted. It is so good.
4. We met such great people. When Kent and I moved to Colorado, then to Los Angeles, then to Singapore, each time it took us at least six months to settle in, make good friends and develop a community. In Bali, it took less than a month before we found friends that we absolutely adored. We do have a knack for always meeting great people, and our friends are always attractive, intelligent and funny people, and Bali was no exception. I wasn't in LA 24 hours before I missed our Bali friends.
5. The surprises in the details. Even when I said I was over Bali, I never got over the randomness or the element of surprise you come across in places like Bali. Whenever I left the house without our Nikon I was sorry. One night we left the grocery store. When we got to the main road, it was full of marching children carrying torches of fire for Indonesian Independence day. As far as the eye could see in both directions were children carrying torches. So we turned around and took the back roads home through the nesting place of the herons. It was nesting hour, so when you looked up, the sky was full of white iridescent wings spread wide. You couldn't see the leaves on the tree, there were so many birds. The trees were white with them. Another night driving home, we passed a cremation procession. We only saw it a split second, but the image of the deceased wrapped in a batik sarong and being carried to the burn site moved Kent and I in a way we had a hard time finding words for.
And I do miss the beauty of Bali. It feels good to be in the Pacific Northwest again; honestly, it feels nurturing in a way I can't explain (my family is predominantly Swedish and Scottish - I think I'm just hard wired to be North). I love the light of the West Coast. I love the air. I love the trees. Yet I can't help but miss some of the beauty of Bali. Despite being over it when I was over it, part of me still considers it one of our homes.
We arrived safe, sound and tired in the states two weeks ago Thursday. We stayed with my dad just outside LA and we stayed with our friends in LA for a few days to cut down on driving (sitting) in traffic to see people.
It's a funny thing staying in other people's houses, not like we did in Singapore and Bali, where the houses are furnished but the people are not there, so you try to make a home out of other people's things. But like you do in the states when you stay with people, their furniture, their animals, and their routines. It takes a bit to settle in and to make yourself at home - to slide yourself into some one else's already established routines. I was raised with that unspoken rule: when people say, "Make yourself at home" - don't. So I try to be a good guest and polite, to help with the dishes, to not be disruptive, to not ask for too much.
But now that I'm an adult and have a child, I've learned that I was raised with the rules of a neurotic bygone era, that with good friends I can walk in and make myself - and my child - at home. Admittedly, my child surprised my parents. I forgot to warn my dad about child proofing. I forgot to say it would help me deal with the jet lag post fatigue syndrome if the place was child proofed so I could relax and not have to worry about my almost two year old son being within reach of the knife drawer. It took a few days to get the place situated for an almost two year old. Once the house was safe and the knife drawer had one of those annoying plastic things that you have to push down in order to open the drawer, we could relax a little. Still, everyone has the way they do things, and even when you are mindful of this, you don't do things the way people would if they did it themselves and you are mindful of this not doing as they would until your mind is tired of being mindful of the already established way of doing things and you just have to go to bed and blame the overwhelm on the jet lag.
After a year, it is really good to see and to stay with people. And we do miss having a place of our own.
This afternoon, we left LA. We were ready to leave though we sadly didn't see all the friends we wanted to, but we were anxious to get to cooler weather. We drove to a friend's house in Lake Arrowhead where the air is crisp and chilly. Our friend's house has a beautiful view, a king size bed with bed warmer and it is big enough for Fyo to run around with out injuring himself on dangerous objects. Nonetheless, we pulled up out front, parked the car, and sighed.
Here we are again in somebody else's house. I said.
Yep. Kent said.
It is the house of a good friend where it is easy to be comfortable. He is a bachelor, so there are some things we come prepared for, like that his refrigerator is empty except for a carton of milk and a bottle of ketchup. This is vastly different from my dad's house we have just come from where there are two refrigerators so full you don't know how all the food is going to get eaten before it goes bad. When we come to Jeff's house we bring food to tide us over until dinner (when we order a pizza) and a bottle of wine. But his guest bedroom is always made up, and, that we now appreciate, is a gift in itself. When you don't have a bed of your own, it's nice when people create one for you.
48 weeks we've been abroad. It sounds like an overdue pregnancy. Next week, when we return to the states, it will be 49.
I have spent a good chunk of my life wishing I was the child of diplomats, so I could have one of those cool accents that's unplaceable as a result of living everywhere as well as a childhood full of passport stamps. When I wasn't lamenting my parents' career choices, I was wishing I was born to parents in France. I admit, I still wish this from time to time, like last week, when hiking Mt. Rinjani and we came upon several French families as well as a group of French women. All of them were beautiful; they had impeccable skin despite smoking and being out in the sun. Despite their even tans, they didn't have a wrinkle anywhere around their eyes or mouth. I am continually baffled about how they do this.
Kent offered that we could live in France to find out their secret, though he suspected it had something to do with how they bankrupt their country every twenty to forty years. I said, they go bankrupt because of their stellar health care and education, and personally, I'd prefer to live in a country that bankrupted itself for the sake of my quality of life. (Versus my country which bankrupts itself with its love of all things military.)
Since Kent and I got married, we continued the fantasies about our parallel lives with wishes for years spent abroad as ex-patriots, and we have loved being ex-patriots.
And yet, we are ready to go home. To the states I mean. The closest thing to home we have is a white Suburu Outback waiting for us in San Diego and a bunch of family members who are making up the beds in their guest bedrooms for our stay.
Our friends in Bali have fallen into two camps on our departure: the first thinks we're insane and predicts that before long we'll be back. The second asks if we're over it, and completely understands where we're coming from when we say yes, we're over it.
Probably both camps are right. Kent and I have admitted to each other that while we don't want to live in Bali, we do feel connected to it in a way, and far more connected to it than Singapore or Los Angeles - two places we spent far more time in than Bali. As we shop the wholesale markets for gifts, we again and again come back to the idea of starting an export business, design studio and store full of things we liked or that caught our eye. Now when people ask when we'll be back, Kent says we'll be back on buying trips. I say we'll be back when I've gotten my fill of Winter and Fall and wearing sweaters and trousers and boots and hats.
We've taken a break from figuring out where our home will be. Even as we both love San Francisco, we both admit to each other that we haven't locked in on it. It's almost as if we're waiting for something better or more "us" to show up. Part of me actually suspects that I will be packing my boxes for San Francisco and Kent will get an unbelievable offer for a gig in Shanghai out of left field. Or Amsterdam. I've also had moments of doubts, of waking up with a physical magnetic craving for the New York Public Library - not just for the inside of the library and the smell of the shelves and shelves of books, but seeing the lions out front. I have moments where I want nothing more than to take Fyo's picture with the library lions and have him roar when he sees one, the way he now mimics a rooster when he sees one walking down the road.
Anyway, we're packing, and ready for home, for half & half, for National Public Radio, for reliable internet, for thrift stores, for family and friends.
I write. Sometimes to explore and discover, sometimes to reflect, sometimes to respond and share and sometimes just because. I meander through parenting, books, education, things that irk me and things that delight me.
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