Anticipating ocean. // Speaking of water, we’re off to the seaside today. For the first time the app calculates the northern route will be faster (I guess traffic in Gianyar and Karangasem has gotten that bad). So we drive up through jungly ravines to the Kintamani highlands, clockwise around Batur, then head southeast along the coast. Only a three-hour journey but good to get through the hairpin turns while everything’s still fresh.
And meanwhile, we can’t wait to hear the tide. Then to step in moving water and feel it on our feet. The gritty sand, the drowned seaweed smell, the salt-sticky wind from a steady horizon. How our hair will turn perfectly crunchy as we fall into hypnagogic states of contentment. (E packed the ukulele.) Right before leaving on these trips to the coast, there is a peak of longing, like we can’t carry even one more orphan inhalation. Like we’re running home to mother.