When I moved to Ubud eight years ago, I contacted the Editor of the Bali Advertiser with the suggestion that I write a column. I hardly knew anyone and it seemed like a good way to meet interesting people.
I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d been a writer for many years and I knew a deadline from a dartboard, but these were remorseless. Every second Wednesday I had to pony up with 1,000 words that were interesting, relevant and true whether I felt like it or not. Sometimes I did not feel like it. Very often I sat down under the ticking clock with no idea at all what I was going to write about.
And so began a journey and a journal. I became a window to Bali and my life here for myself and BA readers. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Greenspeak was meant to be a column on the environment. But those endless deadlines soon pushed me out of that box, and I began to expand my mandate to include my own environment – my garden, my dogs, my staff, my street… I found myself holding the space for many small encounters and experiences and distilling them into 1,000 words of prose every second Wednesday. My editor, bless him, gave me a very long rope. (The only time he censored anything I’ve written was to remove a red-hot and possibly actionable paragraph about a manufacturer of baby formula.)
The column led me outside to meet people who are creating positive change on this island, onto construction sites, into rice fields and Balinese compounds. It led me into my garden to observe the plants and creatures there. And it led me inside myself, to examine how I was so touched by Bali’s profound and quirky magic.
The trouble with writing for a paper is that people tend to believe what they read and be influenced by it. So I had to train myself to be a witness, not a judge. Even if a situation had me raging, I had to try and present it from a place of calm balance because you will read it. I have to walk the talk, because of you. You keep me honest.
People my age who settle in this part of Bali often come from an academic or business life. They’ve taken a great leap of faith, leaving a world of reliable medical care, live theatre and good wine to live in a rice field. It’s remarkable what happens to them, over time. The right side of the brain wakes up and starts to dance in Ubud, this little town that is a crucible of creativity. Tax lawyers and computer wizards take up painting, educators start designing hats. I used to write corporate brochures and advertising copy. Now my keyboard clicks to tales of spirits from the undercliff and dragons in the bath.
I’m always pleased and humbled when people tell me they enjoy the column. It’s an odd feeling, actually, to write a story and send it out to the world for strangers to read. Sometimes those strangers write to me, and some of them became friends. A couple of times an enraged reader has sent in a rant-- my writing was too positive, too happy. Was I blind? Didn’t I see the piles of garbage and the mangy dogs and the corruption? Well yes, I do. But long ago I learned that people are just about as happy as they decide to be, and I’ve decided to be happy.
A few years back people started saying, “You should make a book of these stories.” But I’d written a book before, and dealt with agents, editors and publishers.I remembered the negotiations and compromises; it hadn’t been happy experience. Then one day in November Ian Lloyd, himself a writer of books, said, “Just do it yourself. Make the book.” And he told me how.
Someone once said, “Community begins exactly and precisely where you are sitting right now.” When I launched this project, I discovered that my community included all the people I needed to birth a book. Jenny helped select the stories. Diana edited the manuscript and Kathy proofed it. Susan executed a delightful painting for the cover. When it was dry we took it to Sue’s internet shop to scan and send to Singapore where Jenny’s company would lay out the cover design. Jeremy advised on a local graphic designer and which type of paper to use. Trisna told me how to get an ISBN number, and Alex translated the letter. Bayu laid out the manuscript with saintly patience as I sat beside him, then reformatted the whole thing again when I got the dimensions wrong. Jean and William and Vern advised on marketing. Graeme designed the website. Janet placed the first order for 30 books. And everyone else said, “Well, it’s about time.”
Assembling the stories and looking back, I see what a magical journey the past eight years has been. The book is about a simple life in a Bali that many visitors and residents never see. A tourist in Kuta or a villa-ite from the Bukit would think I was on another planet, not just up the road. It truly is another planet, and I wouldn’t be anywhere else. Dragons and all.
