Let me be clear, I love the United States.
I love the people here. The whole mix who arrive from the corners of the earth. I love what it means to be from here - authentic, fair, kind - a little too loud. I love our flag, I love the Fourth of July. I cry every Fleet Week when the Blue Angels roar over our city and get emotional at most customs processings. I just love it here. I love this country.
But damn. These Aussies are making a run.
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“Are we talking Bali, Bali? Or Australian Bali.”
I am confirming a pending design aesthetic with Kristina, who is very, very loosely consulting me about her recently dreamed up backyard inspiration. I already know her answer. “Uh?.... Aussie.”
It's obvious. The Australians are the kings and queens of cool. Minimalists, relaxed, wild. All of them beautiful.
Their presence in Bali is ubiquitous. Surf boys especially. Imagine a motorcycle gang of skinny, stunning boys, with line drawing tattoos like something acquired in juvie, wearing Kurt Cobain sunglasses and their hair in scrunchies. They look like million little rock stars all over the island. They skirt the worlds of masculine and feminine, like Prince. I saw one once with an updo on the beach. They reek of cool.
Before this trip, there was no shortage of Australians who had traipsed through my life and captured my heart.
There is the mystical Harriet, who taught me how to go for a sunset run through San Francisco in a red lip, fall in love with everyone all the time, and how to live out of your luggage with only five beautiful pieces of high quality clothing (one of those pieces was a golden satin accordion pant and another, a pair of Alexander Wang point-toe Irene flats). I consider Ally, my stunningly gorgeous, appaulingingly athletic friend who I am confident invented the triple-day workout, amidst her full-time job. She vortexed Sue into my life, who is my guardian angel on earth. I consider KDG, the paradigm for the man who will come into my life for good - brilliant in business, generous beyond measure, a believer in romantic love. He met his wife and proposed 2 weeks later. They are approaching their 60 year anniversary. I consider Maggie, who I worked with at my first job and is brilliant, decided, and direct. She knows more about everything than anyone I know. She told me about Bali buses and might have been the first person who mentioned this place to me.
Once I got to Bali, though, there were three of these beauties to add to the mix.
“A bus could drive in here at any minute and kill you and you could have made that photo black and white.” Emma and I are closing down a cafe with Howard, talking about bone structure and health and the superiority of black and white imagery. He fought for his life over the past few years before deciding to move to Bali (outside of his dosage visits back in Australia), to heal for good. I no longer eat sugar because of this man, 21 days in as I write this. Meeting him was the catalyst for my decision to extend my stay in Bali, but only on the terms of keeping more people like him around. Really.
He introduced us to the restaurant’s owner and force of nature. "I feel like a cartel trying to get things into this store.” She is warm but a bit of a hard-ass, the two of them sharing they prefer to refer to Americans as septic tanks. “You guys aren’t like most Americans,” Howard clarifies. She casually covers a story that I have to turn around on my bench seat to react to because the thought of this being discussed at home just isn’t impossible. She concludes with “They all had pinkies up their asses. Couldn’t tell the difference.” I can’t even begin to tell you. There would be riots at the door; a pending lawsuit. She’s a monumental woman. She also doesn’t linger in conversation long, which I appreciate as much as the next person.
And finally, the dream of a boy who showed me around on a night that turned out to be my last. He left me with a lexicon of Australian vernacular that I can’t use now because I am forced into quarantine, but plan to make use of it over there whenever I go. It's probably time I visit.
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I was unaware that it was my last night in Bali.
With Emma gone, I had five days left on my own, cinched in from the two months I was planning on just the day before - Mid March was the peak of the pandemic crisis. The landscape of travel was changing hour by hour - everyone with their own story about staying and bracing for it, or leaving - strategizing their gameplans together over Instagram DMs. It would catch up with me by the next day.
With some simple math, this budget reallocation left me in a place to eat, drink, and rest my weary bones virtually anywhere in Canggu without having to go home broke. I was into it. In a matter of hours, I had upgraded my living situation, given up on sunscreen, ordered champagne, and dressed myself like I was headed to a wedding.
When you start living this way, something fascinating happens to you. Your one job is to enjoy life. You do not worry. Not about money, nor time, nor the future. My single job was to show up and live. It vortexed in some insane situations, at minimum the ability to find miracles in the minutia, which we all know, is what it’s all about. I could have had this all along, I became quickly aware. We are working on this now.
By the time I arrive at the start of this story, I have enjoyed negronis and rosé with new poolside friends from Amsterdam, gone for a sunset swim and been offered a ride in on the cord of a gorgeous boy, and spoken with a man on the beach who was working through the death of his wife. I had also, strangely, broken successfully into a safe. On my way to dinner, I abandon any semblance of a plan to instead hop onto the back of a bike to join a boy and his three friends from Santa Barbara for burritos. Their accents feel I'm home for dinner.
Not ready to end the lucky streak quite yet, I settle on a nightcap at the bar Karly works at. Sadly, she is not there. In standard Karly fashion, however, we do run into each other the next evening to kiki over 12 basil beauties and 42 bao buns before heading to the airport.
When I get to the bar, I step into a nearly empty place save 3 stragglers. I clock one of them, the owner of Leroy’s, who is an absolute live wire. Tall and darling and warm. He talks about his wife and baby right away so you know he’s good people. I'm heartbroken because I was coming off a very light, but very real crush on him from the fundraiser night where Becca and I never won the damn surfboard, not knowing of the marriage situation. His wife will help me build out my Aus Gloss exactly 24 hours from now. I develop a crush on her too.
He invites me to fold in. To my right is a boy with sun bleached hair past his shoulders, an almost perfect middle part, save one chunk in the front. Tied back for now. Steezeeeyyyyy. Clean white t-shirt, checkpoint pros. He’s peppered with home jobs sprouting from his left thigh - a bowl of hummus, a cactus, a name somewhere, a chubby dinosaur. Pure, unadultered, Juvie ink. He looks like a wild animal, or that he at least plays bass. To his right, a stunning Eastern European girl with translucently gorgeous skin who is boring and kind of mean. I don't know why she is there.
The ice queen is in the middle of travel complications, which proves an absolute blessing as it offers the group reprieve from her eviscerating anecdotal comments. She specializes in very niche, subculture categories, like “things I don't like that you do” and “measurements of distances of travel” (as previously referenced). Her contributions halt any cadence the group has established, leaving the boys and myself to fall on the sword in efforts to revive any semblance of a normal human adult conversation. Silently acknowledging each other's valiant efforts, allegiances begin to crystalize. I order a glass of rosé to take the edge off. We get ten minutes before the Leroy’s owner conveniently sees his way out from the 10th circle of socializing hell and peels off, leaving Blondie and I to carry the torch.
With the girl now predisposed with a worried uncle or an airline, we get to it.
Where’s home? It's here, and also here. Google displays a West Australian coastline on my phone - cyan waters, a jumping orca? I flashback to my “vacation” last year in the frigid San Juan Islands where Kendall and I nearly froze to death to see these fucks when I could have gone to this sunny place all along and probably also made out with this guy. He supplements with some of his own, adding insult to injury - him standing in waist high water with perfect clarity, boats and jet skis tied up like Lake Havasu. He lives in the movie Adore. I don’t know how anyone would leave a place like this. It’s this moment I become equally intrigued yet skeptical of this beautiful boy.
He's funny, funny. Eccentric funny. An expander type - you feel a bit more interesting than you might be and you end up on layered tangents trying to circle back to the original point from half an hour ago. He's also a bit of a dick, but it skews as boundary motivated, so I'm absolutely here for it.
He orders a glass of wine, pauses to deliberate after tasting it and turns to look at me.
"I think this wine's turned …?”
Another pause.
“... I'm going to drink it anyway.”
He probably said reckon. I don’t know. I am too mystified by the laid back vibe of Aussies, dismissal of ego entirely, and their unwavering commitment to getting drunk. I'm trying to evaluate what parts of him are intrinsically his, and what are just the Australian parts of him. Can I move there and adopt these traits? Am I going to have to capture him specifically? I make note to increase my sample population in the coming days that don’t exist.
We chat. We dissect the art of good storytelling, his disappointment that I didn’t make it to Seminyak, my many colorful emotions of the day. At one point, I'm howling while he's in the middle of pantomiming postured scootering with a committed squint to demonstrate easy ways to show everyone you know you are better than them. It’s here the Eastern Euro spooks us from stage right.
Is she still HERE? Yes - and she's extremely mad at us about something that absolutely boils down to us only talking to each other this whole time. She requests to use our phones so she can call a restaurant where she left her credit card. We both shrug, unable to help; he offers to take her the restaurant on his scooter as some kind of a consolation prize. I actually do have roaming, I just don't like her, and I get leaned into pretty hard on this one from him after the fact. I don’t regret it. I have Apple Pay on there. Her blow out is an absolute implosion of deferred responsibility and inconveniencing on epic levels, and as impressed I am with her strategy, there are greater stakes at play here. She leaves the restaurant infuriated at the two of us with a fistful of rupiah trailing in her tailwind.
No sooner than she's turned the corner, do I see this kid take his hair down. That's. What’s. Up. There’s something so wonderful in this moment for me because girls do this sort of thing all the time, and humans just aren’t that different. We want people to see new angles of us, to feel like they don’t really know us, which is the best algorithm for attraction on earth. You recognize the space between you and imagine you’re the person to close in on it. Obviously, I don’t know this guy at all, and that’s exactly why I like him. The only similarity between us was that we both despised the girl next to us. But the hair-down gesture is absolutely brilliant. I’ll gather it into a french twist later and he is breathtaking.
The floor is now open. My foot finds its way to his barstool, I drape myself melodramatically over mine. He orders a beer as the evening winds down.
Except that’s…… not at all what's happening.
“I actually can’t drink beer? I am absolutely LEG-less after two beers. Full maggot.” (He saying beer like “beah” but I’m not about to do that on here.)
"whatttttt…"
“Ya? Be half cut after this one?”
He doesn't know that I don't know what he is saying but I gather the evening is about to take a turn. While things ramp up, I jot down these new words because this is getting… spectacular. Generously, he expands on a few additional glossary terms after we assign definitions to the above. They absolutely mean blacked out.
First up - ‘Howyagoin.'” To illustrate over the profound language barrier, he takes a theatrical swig of his beer, further poisoning himself, and winces. “Ahhhhhh this beers a bit HOWYAGOIN.” Asking someone the question “howyagoin?” is boring, so calling something "howyagoin" makes it boring. He recommends I leave a review for this restaurant with the phrase assigned specifically to the Singapore Chili Crab.
The crash course on country grammar continues. “Yarn” - a chat. “Talking turkey” - I honestly don’t know, but I am accused of it, which whatever it is, doesn't surprise me. An “unnecessary" - one too many. It’s the night cap, it’s the moonlight spliff, it’s staying up to watch the sunrise - this one receives heavy debate. Basically, overdoing it for sport.
Not immune to its charms, we begin to discuss my dress. He knows the creator of the label, naturally. I give my regards. He gives his regards. I gather the fabric from its bottom hem for us to examine further on the top of the bar. It's a muted, 18th century botanical illustration laid on a cream background - airy woven branches with olive leaves and the sweetest little figs, pears, pomegranates. He says something nicer than he should about the piece in its entirety, and I realize how the rest of the night is going to go.
As the restaurant ties up, he signs his tab and I am able to witness something I haven’t before - a signature more beautiful than my own. I compliment his and bravely say nothing about mine and simultaneously plot his murder. The place is now completely empty. He disappears to the other side of the bar and the music changes - Mos Def ushers us into the after hours. We get maybe three tracks in.
"Tall Drink of Water, skull your drink. We're gonna go play pool.” I jot down skull.
Out front, he pulls up his bike up to the sidewalk and tips the entire thing towards me. I've yet to see this and am delighted. Bali chivalry? I hike up the dress that got me into this whole mess in the first place and hop on. It makes a RAKAKAKAA sound as he accelerates. His hair blows into my mouth. I love him.
We descend a flight of stairs into the carbon copy SoHo underground and order a couple drinks. It’s moody and dark, save the well lit oversized art. Whiskey and tangerine for me, some ruby red tiki number for him. I remember an umbrella in it. I try a sip of it and shudder, prepared to absolutely roast this guy to oblivion, until he says he quite likes it or something wholesome like that. I abandon my plan.
A pool shark who looks like Tabitha's Salon Takeover is down there and raking. I'm scared of her. He covers the game before ours like an angel while I partake in my two favorite Bali pastimes, spilling the T with absolute strangers and Shazamming like a fiend (Spotify playlist here). I enlist his help when I can get it, he's running to holdup the bartender for intel. “HOOCH BY KELIS!!!” He takes this time to confirm my grave suspicion - that masterful music selection of Canggu hotspots is essentially the same 5 songs on repeat.
This is the first time I'm actually seeing him upright. He hits the Bali prerequisites - tall, lean, tan. Swimmers shoulders. Eternal youth. Rabid undomestication. The boy appears untackleable. Is it the surfing? Maybe. His movements are decided, strong. Beyoncé has this. She didn’t always, but by OTR tour she danced like a linebacker couldn’t take her down. He / she's a vision.
The table opens and we are up. What unfolds next is, without question, the most appalling “game” of “pool” played in the history of the sport. There are no words to describe the horrors, but I will try.
"Get the FUCK outta my LIIIIIFE!!!” I have my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, while he is yelling at one of my striped balls that for some reason he's aiming for. My face hurts. I don’t know if he’s trying to help me end this game with an ounce of dignity or if he’s blacked out from his 2.5 beers. We are 45 minutes in and there are 10 balls still on the table.
The game had a rough start with the usual gamut of forgivable slapstick humor. My first shot returns from where it started. One of his looks as if it’s going in, but buzzes between the pocket frame before popping back out. We figure more cocktails will help - they don't.
We call a “lighting round” in attempts to speed things up - logic following a statistical advantage with more shots on goal. Absolutely not. He's cheerleading (?? why), yelling for me to “slice it! SLICE IT!!!” but he saw the way I broke the rack and knows I do not have the skillset, nor core strength, nor, once again, ability to understand what the hell he is trying to say to me.
He attempts a trick shot, it looks fabulously cool - but sweetie, you already know it doesn't go in. Amusement has turned to embarrassment, to mortification, to delirium. I make the executive decision to stage a sabotage, removing the cue ball from the process entirely and aiming dead on for the 8 ball. It doesn't go in.
I don’t know how or when the game ends but by the grace of God it eventually does. He calls from the other side of the table while he jogs to the bathroom, “I’m huffed out!! Good exercise!!” I am left holding my face up, nearly collapsing entirely on the floor.
I want to talk about what has actually just happened. Twice now, I’ve docked him - drinking bad wine, and non-ironically enjoying a daiquiri. (Bear in mind, I didn’t know a screw cap could be corked, and he absolutely schools me on that - glass houses). I consider him cool and funny, so look well past it. The third time, however, with this pool game, I get pulled straight down into it.
Let the record state - a theory exists that Blondie may have actually been good at pool, making this entire thing a set-up. At best, to maintain good standing, or worst, to keep me from walking into oncoming scooter traffic to end my suffering. All-consumed with my own twitterings around the bar during his first game, I am not at liberty to confirm his true skill level. But flubbing a trick shot is still flubbing a trick shot.
I can tell someone I am horrible at something, which is what I do all the time, knowing I am either already proficient at it or will likely be able to muscle my way through. I care about this sort of thing. Setting a low expectation in their eyes helps me comparatively look pretty good. This particular night, however, there was none of that.
Half way through the bloodbath, I remember things getting uncharacteristically quiet and becoming acutely aware of the atrocity at hand. I wanted out. Unfortunately, leaving the table in a tantrum was pretty far down the options list, so I had to stick around for my new exposure therapy. And shot by shot, by shot, by shot, I got to taking myself less and less seriously. And it ended up being a hell of a time. When you splinter off the bullshit we build up around getting to know each other - it kind of makes you just get on with it already. I'm integrating this into my long-term.
“Come on, Pomegranate.” It's time for a moonlight swim.
We head to Echo beach after a wardrobe change. At the water, I think of the hundred times I've been here before. Today has been a master class in perspective. Even at 2am and jet black, the ocean is bathwater. He leaves a hand out for me, and tells me where every rock is. I tell him I'm fine and then take a knee to some coral and that has left a seared white scar that may be there for a while, possibly ever.
I think of the places I've gotten to do this around the world. James, pointing out the planets to Emma and I laying in the grass in the savannah. In Nosara, with a guitar wafting from the next blanket over. Big Sur, with the sunroof open and heat blasting as I crawl up Highway 1. The ocean under the stars is undeniably different.
We talk in between dives, about the ease of being in the water with someone who knows it. When the waves start to cross each other, we call it.
I remember looking down at my sandy feet on the back of the bike, piecing it together. Blind luck. Adrenaline. The ethereal dazzle of someone new. But the glaring truth is more simple, and more sobering - this person is a blank canvas. They are your miracle to project an endless summer onto, for a few wonderful hours. They make you feel differently about who you have been, or who you could be after this, and for that, the bet is worth the hand. Always. It is the essence of travel.
We slip into the pool at mine, him settling between me and the light so I don’t have to see what we've pulled in from the ocean. We piss off the neighbors when we put on Nelly, per his request, stopping mid sentence to groove when Country Grammar comes on. There’s an open armed towel waiting for me when I get out.
When he leaves, he threads his head phones through his shirt for the ride home, and I notice the blonde hair from under his helmet is the faintest green, stained from the chlorine, just like mine.
And then I catch the next flight out, leaving the whole thing there, in a gorgeous state of completion.
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"THIS IS NOT OKAY."
AVDB and I are wrapping up our respective traumatic homecoming travels from the other side of the hemisphere while I walk through the park by my parent's house. She and I were meant to meet up in Canggu, but the plan dissolved as travel restrictions tightened. She made it to Australia and New Zealand, but never to me. I made it to Bali and Singapore, but never to her. And now we are sitting here, after this story, anxiety pent up, just thinking of all that could have happened if our plans were not derailed completely.
So she takes me through Australia, one piece at a time. Her late nights, her travel love, the people and just something in the air. She confirms what I kind of already know about the place.
That it’s probably where I’ll be heading next.
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Full Aus Gloss, in the order that exists on the notepad on my cell phone:
Legless - drunk
Maggot - drunk
Half Cut - drunk
Howyagoin’ - boring
Unnecessary - one too many
Yarn - chat
Skull your drunk - pound it
Talk Turkey - nonsense, I think
Tall Drink of Water - myself, Taylor Feezor
Babe - This one’s a bit more contextual, but to this day I’m not sure if it means actual baby or attractive girl. It was received over a picture of both Whit and Caden on the back of my phone and not sure which one was being talked about.
A Blow In - nonlocal
Macho - hypermasculine
Bogan - trashy
Hook In - send it
Off tropps - drunk
Cooked - drunk
Pissed - drunk
Trolleyed - drunk
Laminated - drunk
Cinged - drunk
Kicking goals - To be productive. Truthfully, I thought the saying was saying “gulls” this whole time and was like wow that's a bit graphic but was not putting it past anyone
Devo - devastated
Al dente - perfectly cooked aka drunk
You’ve been in a good paddock - gained weight
You wouldn’t read about it - not important
Prawn - a butterface - given you chop off the head of a prawn and leave the body. The girls at home love this.
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That wraps up Bali. Thanks for reading.