When I arrive at the pool, a Swedish girl named Shereen strikes up a conversation with us, and says she's rented a driver and is going to see a medicine man. Before she can even finish the word "medicine," I knew Lisa was going to work her way into this trip, and she instantly perks up and says "oh, I wanna go!" and I know that I have to go now, because this is bound to be an experience I am not going to want to miss.
I am not a religious person. I am not spiritual. I'm a Jew-born agnostic. I do what I want to do, eat what I want to eat, have no ritualistic habits. The closest I come to praying is when there's turbulence on a plane and I think I'm gonna die, I speak to whatever god I have forsaken every other minute of my life.
We get into the car, and the sun is beating down on me through the window, I am tired as hell, and I am a bit cranky. Something Shereen said about 5 minutes into the ride elicits Lisa to ask her what her star sign is, and Sereen says "oh my god! I was just about to ask you but I thought you might think it was weird!" Shereen's birthday is the same as Lisa's older sister who died before she even knew her, and Lisa's birthday is the same as someone Shereen knows, and Lisa excitedly proclaims, "we were meant to meet each other!". I roll my eyes and too loudly say "oh, Jesus Christ"
I'm a fucking asshole. Seriously.
I don't know if it's the fact that mom and dad didn't raise me to go to temple, or be tied to our religious, or if it was because I grew up in an orthodox neighborhood where the Jews there gave us nasty looks... I've never really needed or wanted religion or spirituality to be a part of my life. I have my own moral code, very strong sense of self and what is right, and have had a very good life. I've never felt the need for anything else, and I feel like religion does more to tell us how to live, what to eat, and who the enemy is.
Lisa has very recently become very interested in Judaism and has been hanging out with a rabbi's wife, learning about it and performing some of the rituals back home. I am so far removed from my own religion that Lisa has to explain to me whatever she is talking about.
"Oh! I got an email from the rebbetzin!"
"What's that, Lisa?"
"Haha, the rabbis wife! She's so sweet, she started her email 'BH'"
"What the fuck is that, Lisa?"
"Baruch hashem!" She replies, seemingly shocked.
"Lisa, I have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Ever."
And that's how every conversation goes when I talk to Lisa about Judaism.
Do I hope there is a heaven and a god? Sure. But I don't feel the need to live my life according to some ancient and antiquated belief system to live a life worthy of god's love, if there is one.
So to throw horoscopes on that?? I can't help it. I realize what a dick I'm being, expressing my disdain and disbelief, especially to a really nice girl I just met, who so nicely offered to take us on this adventure. So after they go on about who is a Gemini, and what that meant, I break the silence and try to fit in, "I'm a Sagittarius if anyone gives a shit!" And they laugh at me, and the fact that both of their exes are Sagittarius, and that we're wonderful people but pretty shitty to date, because freedom is of the utmost importance to them.
Maybe there is something to astrology after all, because this thing about being free and everything everyone else tells me about my star sign pretty much sums me up perfectly. Sagittarius: we like our freedom and are smart, creative, have lots of friends, but have so many that when there's something shiny to distract us, we get new friends. That's me, in a nutshell, I think.
So Shereen has a whole day lined up. First we went to a major temple in Ubud, outside the city center. It's beautiful, much like the ones here in the center, but there are ritual baths where people go to purify themselves and prey. I'm sure I cold use a little purification, and my period's finally over so I wouldn't be completely disrespecting the pious, but I didn't have a change of clothes and didnt want to be soaking wet.
There was a prayer service going on, and as much as I am not interested in being religious myself, this Hindu ceremony was so calming and peaceful. A man dressed in a Nehru-stylus white blazer, white sarong, and sandals sprinkled some kind of holy water on the people kneeling on the floor. They rub the water in their hair, and clasp their hands to pray, and stick rice on their forehead where a bindi might go in india. There's a lot of incense. There's incense burning all over Bali, and I love the way it smells. At home, incense smells like hippies or potheads. In Bali, it smells like calm.
I love these temples here, and I love watching the people put their square banana leaf boxes of flower, rice, and incense offerings in front of their businesses and homes every day. Maybe I will look into Hindu as my next religion.
Next stop on the tour is the coffee plantation. It's so green and so beautiful and overlooks more green, all the way down to the river. They grow and roast coffees and tea, and upon arrival they've poured us a free selection...the coconut coffee and lemongrass tea was spectacular.
They also specialize in "Kopi lewak," which is Indonesia's version of what my dad nostalgically refers to as "cat-shit coffee" in Vietnam. A weasel called lewak eats the coffee beans, poops them out, and then those beans are cleaned, roasted, and harvested. It makes for a very smooth coffee because the lewak is very discriminating, picks only the very best and ripe beans,and his digestive enzymes makes the coffee taste all good, somehow. Some New York cafe was selling this exotic coffee for $50 a cup. At the plantation it was $5 a cup, and even though I've had it before, I was happy to have it again. They brew this special coffee in a "coffee siphon." It has an erlenmeyer type flask at the bottom that is filled with water, and the coffee is in a glass jar on top. The two are connected by a tube and the boiling water goes up the tube and soaks the coffee grounds. The coffee is delicious, not a hint of bitterness, and I drink it black which I never do with regular coffee.
It's a family business, and our guide there was so knowledgeable and wonderful... He was so informative about the coffee process and gave us free tastes of all the fruit they grow on the plantation: guava, durian (not in season thank god), passion fruit which I can't believe I've never had fresh. Also, two fruits I've never seen before: tamarillo, which has the most beautiful red-orange flesh and tastes like a cross between tomato and passion fruit, and something that looked like a nut, tasted like a hard lychee, and looked like a huge garlic clove.
That was the highlight of my day.
Off to the medicine man. We pass one artisan shop after another. One shop, tables. Another, ornate headboards. Stone deities. All hand carved and gorgeous. I haven't decided if I want to do this medical man nonsense...I really don't think I have any real problems, and I'm running out of money, and I'm not a believer in this stuff anyway,
Shereen lies down first. He says, what can I do for you?" She tells him, and he uses a tool to poke into her toes, as each spot in each toe corresponds to a part of the body much like reflexology I suppose. She yells "ouch" at whatever corresponds to her hormones, and then he traces his magic stick (not a euphemism, literally, his stick) over her body in some pattern I can't discern, makes her make a triangle with her hands and place it on her vagina, more tracing, moves her hands to various places on her body: her head, her stomach, her chest, more tracing, and then tells her something I can remember.
Lisa is next... Lisa is pretty emotional about the experience and as soon as she lays down, she starts to sob. She told him what she needed. He does the toe thing. It hurts at "doubt." He says something about her head going one way and her stomach/vagina going the other way (i couldn't see and she couldn't hear well.). The tracing begins.
And then, from the medicine man's crotch, his cell phone rings.
Was this a bad omen? Was it the spirit world directly contacting him to tell Lisa what doubts she had to let go of? He excuses himself for a minute and takes the call. Way to kill the moment, shaman. He comes back, does some more tracing, does the triangle vag thing, stands her up, and whispers some private words of advice.
I was doing a really good job of not giggling or making jokes and being quiet and respectful, right up to the time the cell phone went off.
He looks at me. "What can I do for you?"
"I don't know," I respond, "what CAN you do for me?"
I smile. He sizes me up. I say I think I'm ok, but maybe there was one thing he could do, and I tell him what it is, smiling. He looks displeased with me.
"Lie down."
He does the toe thing. Head, ok. Heart, ok. Liver, lungs, hormones, ok. He does something and I jump.
"You have a dark secret."
I can't think of anyone in my life who has fewer secrets than me. I tell everyone everything, I am an open book. I over share, whether it's about my feelings, my emotions, or if I have a yeast infection.
"Hmmmm... Really? I don't keep a lot of secrets. Ask her," I say, pointing at Lisa. I'm trying to be nice and respectful, but secretive is one adjective that doesn't describe me.
He makes me kneel and touch my head to the ground. He traces my back and my head. He turns be back over. Traces my body. I do NOT get the vag triangle treatment. He looks at me and scoffs "nothing wrong with you," and I softly gloat at Lisa and Shereen "ha! Nothing wrong with me."
Was the medicine man just appeasing me? Could he just tell that I was not a believer and felt i was wasting his time? Is there really nothing wrong with me? Why didn't he want ME to touch my vag? I have so many unanswered questions.
We all stand up and give thanks. He gives one special blessing on Lisa's face and simply says to us "money," and points to the donation basket.
I don't know how much to donate to a medicine man, but I give him $10 mostly because I feel like I annoyed him.
It was such an amazing day... This was the one thing I thought I might miss not traveling alone this summer- random acts of kindness and openness with other strangers traveling alone. And I wouldn't have even considered it if it weren't for Lisa's enthusiasm. I am so happy and lucky to have the best of both worlds right now.
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