What happens in Bali stays in Bali

Until it changes everything.

I am sitting outside of a cafe in the streets of Penenstanan, Ubud.

The cafe is closed, not because it’s 8pm but because it’s been closed for months now, maybe even a year, no one can quite remember. The reason the cafe has been closed, the owner Made tells me, is because his daughter recently had a baby and the whole family is focused on welcoming this new soul onto the earth, making sure his feet don’t touch the ground, making sure he knows in his body he is loved, he is welcome, he is a part of something bigger than himself.

When my grandson is older, he says, my daughter will take over the cafe, but there’s no rush. We don’t care about the money, he tells me, looking me dead in the eye.

That’s just not happiness to us.

In the space of three weeks I have packed up my entire apartment and life in Sydney.