Two funerals

 

This last weekend two friends lost their grandparents. I heard about the first on the Friday, and the second on Saturday.

Death moves quickly in Singapore. The certificate is issued within hours, and within the day the wake is held and you are in your black clothes sitting with the coffin. I remember the wake we held for Ama: the hours of sitting are so long, and people come and you are thankful but it's also so exhausting, all the small talk. People are interested in you - "where are you working now?" "are you planning on having any children?" "how's your father?" and you answer because that's what you do, when what you want is to sleep, and cry, and maybe eat a steamed bun because it reminds you of soft, grandparental love.

Both of my friends told me that their grandfathers wanted their ashes scattered out at sea. I imagined them and their families, each boarding a boat and heading out into the green waves. The sky is grey, as it has been these monsoon months. Perhaps each sees another boat in the distance but then they turn their gaze back to the task at hand. Good bye, good bye. 

Healing not striving

A woman in church came up to my mother to say, "As your sister in Christ, I just wanted to let you know that you've put on weight." When my mum told me about that, laughing, I felt so much inner rage. I know my mother's own insecurities about her middle-aged body, and particularly about her weight, especially as a white woman in an asian society. Her body that has birthed three children and lifted my father's arms and legs in physiotherapy exercises after his stroke. In my eyes she is so incomparably beautiful, and someone had the gall to say something that suggested her body wasn't good as it is.

Our bodies are sacred, intricately created things. But there are so many ways you can hurt a body even when you think you're doing the right thing.

Earlier this year Jacob and I started to train for a half-marathon together. We would go on three runs a week, and I pushed my body to go faster, further, and to keep up with my long-limbed husband. A month or so before the race, my left knee started to complain, then ache, then hurt and I had to stop running and see a physiotherapist who observed that I had weak hips and had done more running than my body had the strength to take without over compensating. The pain was my body telling me in no uncertain terms that this was all too much. 

I rested, did my physio exercises, and then doggedly did the half marathon through a mixture of walking and running. And then, I stopped running for two months. I missed it terribly: running makes me feel free and strong. It has always been something I could do, easily. But when I stopped running I also felt relieved. I hadn't realised how much of a strain running had been taken and how exhausted I'd been, because I was still managing to carry myself through my days somehow. I couldn't believe that I'd been unknowingly hurting myself for a long time, thinking that I was making myself stronger. Not running felt like a breath of fresh air, and I found other ways of feeling free and strong that gave my body a gentler way to express itself.

As my body healed and grew stronger, I looked forward to the day I would begin my recovery runs. I started out with a minute of running interspersed with a minute of walking, five times. Then two minutes running, and one minute walking five times. I was elated - and I was running quickly, clocking paces quicker than before my injury. Four or five recovery runs in, and I felt an ache in my right foot, which returned every time I ran and sometimes emerged when I walked. I'd injured myself again, and have been resting for another two weeks. That was very demoralising, but after a big cry over the frustration of it all, I've tried to, as Katherine May says, "treat myself like a favoured child". 

This season, perhaps, is about healing and soothing, not striving. 

I've also noticed how my body needs recovery from fear or stress. Jacob and I have finished reading Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, in which among other things they detail our natural responses to stress: fight, flight and freeze. The first two are relatively well known. They describe the last response as the most desperate of stress responses, performed by animals who think that their best chance of not-dying is by pretending to be dead. Their bodies freeze, or faint, and if by some miracle they do escape the danger, they shiver and shake and wake up, and keep going. This hit me - my body does this. I recognise it in a sensation I get when, feel very anxious, I cannot turn my head. It is like my head and neck are frozen, and I cannot move. Oddly enough, I usually do still manage to keep going, doing whatever I was doing, whether it's singing or speaking in front of a crowd or holding a difficult conversation. I sometimes have this feeling when I sing in church, I don't know why, and when I get home I feel exhaustion all through my body and I don't feel like myself again until I sleep. 

Today I had to introduce myself in an unfamiliar setting, and I felt so nervous, and when I received the microphone the freezing feeling settled onto me, I managed to say something, and smile and pass the microphone on. When we got home we had our meal, then I went straight to bed. I woke to Jacob gently holding me, soothing my body and loving it back into a remembrance of itself. 

I was talking to my Mum recently, and we reached the realisation that Dad only really started working when he was 27 years old; before that he'd been studying, travelling the world, and doing his time in the army. It reminded me of a conversation around a table with my extended family last year in Reading, where my uncles and aunties shared their first jobs. These people, who I'd always seen as so established and professional had started in sometimes completely different fields. An uncle who is now doing something with investments started off painting walls, and an auntie who is a teacher started as a housekeeper for a rich family. All this felt very comforting for me, and brings me back to the fact that life, really, is still at its beginning. 

It's been a very intense period for Jacob, and as we went on our monthly relationship walk-and-talk yesterday (in which we talk about what we're thankful for in each other, and other things that we could work on or plan for in our marriage), we mulled over what other jobs he might do. Many were education related - teaching teachers how to teach, consultancy work. Others were more general skills in management, or writing and editing. Then we talked about absolutely wild possibilities: a tree surgeon! A plumber ("but I don't want to be a plumber")! A farmer ("now that's a job that takes over your whole life")!

(Unrelatedly?) Dad has this way of looking at you as if you are the most delightful being to ever walk this planet.

I wish I could capture it. 

The wisdom of children

 Yesterday my family had an eleven year old over for lunch. She's in Singapore trying to learn English (and doing pretty well at it), and the lunch conversation was an opportunity to practice. Over the course of the meal we explained what 'walnut', 'otter' and 'chickpea' were (the latter probably being her most hated food) and she told us about her family and school. At one point, Hannah suggested that she try asking me and Jacob some questions and she turned to me, a glint in her eye and asked, "Do you like your husband?"

(The answer is still, happily, yes.)

Mother's day flowers

On Sunday it was Mother's day in Singapore, so after church Jacob and I went to a florist in Holland Village (the same florist Dad frequents every time it's Mum's birthday or their anniversary) to pick up some flowers. 

The bouquet was large, with bright red ginger flowers, lilies in bud and purple chrysanthemums nestled among green leaves. I held them on the bus that took us to Mum's home, and as we went along suddenly heard a small voice from the back of the bus:

"Dad, why - why - why - why does that girl have so many flowers?"

It was a boy of probably about 5 or 6 years old, feet dangling above the floor and looking at me with great curiousity. His Dad must have given some sort of explanation, because he then said:

"Yes, but why so many flowers??" 

And he continued to ask that question for the roughly 7 minute bus ride, to my great amusement.

Mum loved the flowers, and the little boy turned out to be a neighbour. He came over later in the afternoon and delivered one orange flower to her, to add to her bouquet of so many flowers.

April is the cruellest month

On the Thursday before Good Friday, the train station smelled like hot cross buns, and I was on the last chapter of The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson as I walked to the museum. The book is based on The Winter's Tale which has always been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays for it's redemptive arc and that painful human desire for something that seems irrevocably broken and ruined to come back to life. I've been feeling a weight of hopelessness for a while now, and sections of the (overall rather bleak) book reminded me, in a stoic sort of way, that life can go on even when it feels grey, and that things can change. 

“And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman’s fortune or one man’s loss. And we can’t know the lives of others. And we can’t know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.”

― Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time

I have been so thankful for books. Ann Patchett's Tom Lake was magnetic and tender, and it made me text my Mum and ask her out for brunch (which turned into breakfast and a massage). I'm completely absorbed by Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels now, which express the competition and love between friends so well, while also unveiling the wretchedness of poverty. The front cover of the second book I'm reading says: "Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you'll have some idea of how explosive these works are." I keep a Mary Oliver's poems beside my bed, and two days ago read The Other Kingdoms and it's line about the creatures with their "infallible sense of what their lives are meant to be" twisted in my heart. Life sometimes seems so complicated. I don't really know what my life is meant to be, and sometimes I feel like I made some sort of big mistake as I moved through it, hurtling with arms outstretched towards the next thing only to find myself here, at twenty seven, wondering why?

Yesterday I came home and felt fragile. The night before I'd tried to do too many things, and consequently messed up the process of installing a tempered glass screen protector on my phone. The following morning, inexplicably, the phone stopped working, which felt like a punishment for my incorrigible sin of trying to do it all. I came home and J was making pasta for dinner and asked if I wanted to go out and do some hill sprints. What I really wanted was to be held, and I said so in a sideways way. I could tell J really wanted to run, and he thought about it for a while. Then he came over to where I was on the sofa, changed into my sports clothes, and said "I choose you. You are more important than exercise."

Do you know what that is like? To be told you are chosen when you feel like you've messed up? 

After dinner, and after the slice of courgette and marmalade cake I'd made the night before, and after I washed up and made the next day's breakfast while J hunched over scripts in the living room (this is what it is), J crawled into bed beside me.  

I'm sorry you've been feeling fragile.

I think it was last night - the phone. And I think when it stopped working today it felt like punishment. I makes me feel like I break things, like I keep messing up and can't learn that lesson of slowing down and not rushing. And I feel like a burden in our marriage because you have so much work and instead of being out there you're in here comforting me.

And J reached over and held me with his arms and his words as he reminded me why I matter to him, to our marriage, and to this world. 

Thank you for saying such nice things.

They're not nice, they're true. Do you believe they are true.

I think so, most of the time. I'm glad they're true for you.

Well, that's human I guess. They're true to me, and true for God.

Again, I had that feeling I sometimes have of things adrift being knitted back together.

My thoughts on the pill

 

Diary entry in March 2021:

I went in a run this morning. At about 2km in I am very sweaty, much sweatier than usual and feeling uneasy and anxious. I am beginning to get a dull pain in my abdomen. I stop and sit down for a while, Mum comes to walk me back, I drink water and walk back feeling better.

I start work, feeling a bit sore especially in my lower back and abdomen. My abdomen feels like it’s being pressed with a heavy weight and also feeling oddly hungry. I drink lots of water but feel dry mouthed.

It gets worse at lunch time. I feel tired, I need to poo, I sweat a lot and it’s cold sweat now. The pain is bad. Lying down helps a little but not much, then not at all. My face feels slack. I’m sweating so much. I’m turning to try to ease the pain. My legs hurt. I want to faint to be out of here. My breathing sounds like this: “Hannah, hnhhh, hnhhhh.” I feel like I’m slipping away, but I also feel so much pain. I try to sleep to escape, eventually I do. 

I feel better when I wake and the pain has passed but left me weak. I sleep again and wake up feeling weak but no longer crampy. I eat some bread.

————————————————————————-

It's been over a year now since I started taking the oral contraceptive pill to manage period pain. I wanted to write about my positive experience with the oral contraceptive pill to add balance to the conversation, because sometimes it is the most extreme and negative responses are the ones that get magnified. These are legitimate experiences: the pill is a hormonal medication that will create change, which could be positive, or it could be negative. But it is worth a try, and if the pill has negative effects it is possible to stop and see an end to the effect of the pill. For anyone thinking about the pill, I recommend watching this video. I’ve learnt that the pill benefits anyone suffering with endometriosis for the following reasons:

- It reduces pain.

- It directly addresses the problem, reducing the growth of endometrial tissue and therefore reducing inflammation and the development of scar tissue because of cycles of growth and shedding.

- Prolonged use of the pill increases rather than decreases the chance of being pregnant.

- After stopping the pill you usually get your period back in 32 days.

- There are multiple sorts of pills, and a doctor can advise on the best one. If one doesn’t work, there might be another option out there that will.

I started experiencing pain connected to my period to the extent that I was unable to function in 2020. It would typically come on the first day of my period, usually without warning. I wrote a list of what the pain was like for a visit to a gynaecologist:

- I sweat a lot

- Cramping in my abdomen, which comes in waves

- Pain radiating down my legs

- My vision goes blurry and I feel like I'm going to faint

- I feel weak and dizzy

- Sometimes the sounds around me go muffled, like I'm underwater

- Sometimes I vomit because of the pain

- Usually the pain lasts for a couple of hours, and I fall asleep.

I first went to the doctor for my period pain out of necessity rather than choice, after almost passing out on a bus, getting off, and then literally crawling on the floor to the steps of a hotel where staff then called an ambulance. The nearest hospital was SGH, which is where I went and they monitored me until my blood pressure got back to normal levels and the pain stopped. They gave me some strong painkillers (Mefenamic acid) and another pill to line my stomach before I took the strong painkillers, and a follow up appointment.

The follow up appointment was with a business-like looking woman who told me that this was a normal woman thing. I asked for a blood test to check on my iron levels or nutrition, and she assured me it was not necessary (but I didn't feel very assured - I just felt trapped and frustrated). I left, and tried the painkillers, which didn't work.

The second visit was with a young man who looked fresh out of med school. I explained the pain I was experiencing. He said it was menstrual pain (I mean, duh) and that I could take the contraceptive pill or get a contraceptive implant. I asked if he could explain what was causing the pain before I considered hormonal medication. He said it was my period (yes, but why is it so painful, when it hadn't been before?) and asked me if I'd heard of prostaglandins (I wanted to ask him if he'd heard of google; of course I'd heard of prostaglandins. I'd been reading everything I could about period pain ever since I'd had the first bad one). I started to cry. He looked stricken, and a nurse passed me a tissue box. I left and cancelled all future appointments.

At that point I thought I'd just endure things, but it kept getting worse, so I made an appointment with the polyclinic, who referred me for an ultrasound and then a follow up at Ng Teng Fong hospital. I went there at the end of 2022, with Mum coming along for moral support. We saw a male doctor who had a foldable bike under his desk, who gently explained that there was nothing unusual about my ultrasound, which meant I (thankfully) didn't have fibroids. He then suggested that while we can't be sure, the cause of the period pain seemed to be traceable to the first day when the uterine lining sheds. The intensity of the pain suggested that either I was experiencing heavy bleeding or endometriosis. He then drew a squiggly picture of a uterus and explained that endometriosis is a condition where the lining that’s meant to grow in your uterus somehow also grows elsewhere. Doctors and scientists don’t quite know why this happens, but when your period arrives and all these linings shed it can cause a great deal of pain. 

He then suggested taking the pill, which introduces “fake hormones” that mimic estrogen and progesterone into my body. This signals to my body not to produce so much of the real stuff, and as a result I don’t ovulate, my uterine lining grows much less each month, and when I have my period between pill cycles, there is less shedding and less pain.

It made such a difference to have someone take the time to explain how things worked, and to answer questions I had about the pill which I was anxious to take in case it affected future fertility, or had negative side effects on physical or mental health. I left the appointment sufficiently assured and with a bag of pills to take. 

After I begin taking the pill I saw an immediate positive change in my periods. They were far lighter and les painful. Initially I would still get cramps,  but cramps that were manageable with pain medication, and which didn’t stop me from moving or working. It has only improved; these days I can go for a run on my the first day with no consequences or fears. I rarely experience any pain, fever low grade pain. 

An unexpected benefit of taking the pill was also in regulating my moods. I'm not clear as to whether it was due to hormones, or the apprehension of pain, but previously I’d get very anxious near my period, and I’d experience what we’d come to call an ‘emotional breakdown day’ at some point which involved lots of crying. Not to mention the feeling that my body was betraying me, and the self-gaslighting of my own body and experiences, exacerbated by doctor's visits in which I was told this was 'normal', where I doubted that the pain I experienced was legitimate. The physical relief provided by the pill also offered mental and emotional relief. After taking the pill I was calmer around my period.

When I was doing my own research about the pill I came across so many terrible stories about its side effects and inefficacy. This combined with the tendency for women's health issues to be downplayed societally and even in medical circles means that it can be hard to take the step of taking hormonal medication for period pain out of fear of the effects of the pill, and doubts that one actually 'needs' it. What I experienced was pain that was abnormal, but I made it seem normal, and kept going until I was shown a way out. The thing is, if pain is stopping you from pursuing normal activities you need relief. If pain is causing you mental and emotional distress, you need relief. It was only when I could step out of the cycle of pain that I fully realised how unnecessary it was to experience it every month, how much it impacted my life, and that help was out there, I just needed the courage and assurance to try.

Little moments of joy

 

- Playing League of lexicon

- Big shell pasta

- A good design meeting

- Running to work

- Seeing an owl as we walked home from my parents house, perched on a branch and backlit by the lights of a basketball court, before it swooped away silently

- Pancake day pancakes slathered with tahini and honey, and chocolate hazelnut spread and banana

- A big bunch of lilies from my love

- A prune (called, on it's packet, a 'plump') and toasted almonds after a Chinese New Year day three walk

- Playing "Six second scribbles" and seeing my auntie double up in laughter over a stick man drawing in response to the prompt "nipple".

- Jungle gold chocolate

Looking back on 2023

 

At the start of this year, I drew myself in vibrant colours. In the picture my arms were outstretched and words surrounded me, words like: 

"Open" 

                     "Embrace"

  "Adventure" 

                                                  "Fun"

              "Joy"

 

I wanted 2023, after the wintering year of 2022, to be my spring: a year where my life opened up again to possibility, joy and adventure. It meant less stability and more flux, experimentation and journeying.

Adventures took lots of different forms. Our family went on our first trip together in February, up to Desaru on the east coast of Malaysia. Desaru has been a holiday place for my family before I was born: we grew up going to the same seaside resort, and saw it change hands three times. The people working in the hotel would recognise us every year and comment on how tall we'd grown, and at the end of the holiday we'd return to Singapore with our skin brown, our hair big with salt and the memory of being rocked by waves still held in our bodies. This visit was the first time we had been back after the pandemic. The sea was bloated and high from the monsoon storms and waves towered over us. There was no choice but to dive into them, or under them, and feel them push and pull you like a muscle. Dad no longer rolled in the breaking waves with us, but he did slowly (stick and all), step into the swimming pool. The cold water stiffened his muscles, but he kept going, walking a lap around the pool before retiring to a deck chair with sunglasses on. An old place, a new form of family; we still had a lot of fun.

The most surreal happening was in April, when for one glorious weekend I flew to the UK for Lucy and Dom's wedding. International flight is befuddling at the best of times, but the sheer magic and strangeness of stepping on a metal airborne cylinder in tropical Singapore and twelve hours later stepping off into the cold air of England was especially obvious when it happened for such a compressed amount of time. I remember the days in a series of  delightful vignettes: being lifted off the ground by a hug from Naomi, sipping hot tea in the kitchen surrounded by excited, loving people, a grateful nap in Lucy and Dom's new apartment, blowing balloons in a room full of balloons, laughing over photographs of young Lucy and Dom with Rachel. Rolling fiddly curlers in Lucy's hair the morning of the wedding, singing 'The blessing' and meaning every word and wishing with all my heart for happiness forever for these two lovely people, dancing and dancing and dancing... I did worry about such a short trip: it was a big expense and a lot of carbon from the flying. But when I was studying in London, an artist once told me that life is short and whenever you have a choice, choose the option that loves people; in this case the answer was obvious. I was so glad I went.

In May we celebrated two years of marriage and I prepared for the opening of my first big exhibition. Both collided on the 22nd of May (our anniversary date). We met on the top of Mt Faber hill, beloved because it has a beautiful view of the port and the sea, and crucially is usually empty of other people. We each brought surprise bits for a picnic, and Jacob chose things that brought back memories of past dates or moments. I felt truly, blissfully happy. When we got home, I received a call from the museum about something in the exhibition that was changing which I thought should not be changed. It was gut wrenching and after the stressful, intense days of installation prior to it. When I talked about it with my boss subsequently, he reminded me that in this job, one must strike a balance between caring for the work and not caring too much. I’m learning to find that balance at work, but the scales don't add up in marriage. In marriage the best thing is to care, and then to care more and more and more and more (but not care about things like an unmade bed or full rubbish bin). 

Jacob's parents visited in June (his Dad and sister) and September (his Mum). By the second visit both had moved into separate houses, and things were different. I read somewhere that divorce doesn't mean your family is broken, but that your family is reorganised. That was a really helpful perspective shift, and meant that when I asked Jacob who he considers his family it made sense when foremost, he maintained that he still sees his Dad, Mum and sister as one of his families, mine as another and our church small group as another. "What about me?" I asked. "You're part of all of them." At the end of the year we went back there to see them, and celebrated Christmas in two different homes. That wasn't easy: each home had it's own emotional energy and ways of being, but also had it's delights. I loved the red kites above Catherine's home and the long walks which required a certain skill of navigation. We walked them with friends too, which felt important. I loved how close Mark's home is to the river that he loves, and how the kitchen is full of his pottery projects (including some plates he considers 'failed', which Jacob and I now happily use for all our toast adventures). In a way, I am learning that there is more of family to explore and discover in this separation, rather than less.

This year my intention is to seek clarity. I imagine clarity as a clear path found through inner stillness, but with the intention to move forward (or backwards, or sideways, or wherever the path is taking you). I hope it will bring better balance between work and life (last year sort of felt like my teenage years at work, with big feelings and frustrations). I hope it will also bring more trust, as Jacob and I make bigger plans for our future. 

Smaller adventures from the year (but still big on joy):  

1. After much deliberation, I joined a choir again and sang in a concert in March. There was also one point where I looked out over the audience and saw Dad struggling to contain what would have been an almighty sneeze and had to stifle a giggle. And after the concert we asked a woman to take a photograph of us, and she cheerfully took one that had all of us in it except our heads. 

2. After the exhibition had been open for a while, Hannah and I took a weekend trip up to Kluang to hike Gunung Lambak. It was a tricky climb, and I was trying my best to keep up with two guys: one of whom was an ex-marine and the other was a canoeist and marathon runner. I just about managed, puffing and panting all the way!

3. In November we joined Emily and Wesley at the 39th Singapore bird race. There were mistakes made: I didn't bring a pair of binoculars and I was wearing bright pink shorts (no camouflage here). We saw over 30 different kinds of birds, including the otherworldly milk stork, endangered strawheaded bulbul and a lineated barbet, which I consider my personal friend since there's often one outside our window. I am looking forward to the 40th bird race!

4. Towards the end of the year some of our friends from small group started weekly badminton sessions. I am very rusty (although have I ever been sharp? That is the question...) and have a bad tendency to squeal when the shuttlecock approaches me at speed, but it is so much fun. 

Bali June 2023

 

After opening my first exhibition in May, Jacob and I took a break in June to fly to Bali with Jacob’s Dad and sister. During the flight I noticed a tiny black speck in the corner of my vision: a floater, like the dot of an ‘i’. It was only visible when I looked at the flat expanse of the great blue sky, and I wondered how long I’d missed it, staring at screens and in dark galleries? I forgot about it soon enough, when the cloud cover below the plane was broken by the tip of a mountain, and as the clouds cleared another appeared, and another.

We’d gone to Bali primarily for Mark, Izzy and Jacob to achieve their open water scuba diving qualification and for me to use mine in the clear waters off Amed (north-east Bali). The sun set about an hour earlier in Bali, and by the time we got to the dive centre it was dark and we were tired after a day of travel. We walked up the stairs to the communal garden where we were offered cold lime juice and water and we knew we were in good hands. The days that followed started with a cooked breakfast, more juice, beautiful dives in the morning and languid afternoons reading and lying down. I loved the regular rhythm and simplicity of it. 

Since I hadn't dived for over six months (when I qualified for open water diving), I took a refresher course with Nyoman where I went through a few basic theory classes with Jacob, Izzy and Mark and then some skills in the calm and shallow waters off Jemeluk beach. Unlike my diving course in Tioman, which frontloaded the theory and then had a few intense days of actual diving, the course Jacob, Izzy and Mark did with Adventure Divers interspersed theory and diving. On that first day we took a slow, wobbly dive around Jemeluk bay and saw lion fish, stone fish, goat fish, shoals of bright blue damselfish, angelfish, and in the far distance a small turtle, like a ghost. 

When you're underwater everything is silent, and you don't have the normal soundtrack of life shadowing each experience. No music through headphones creating an emotional tint, no traffic or city bustle drowning out your thoughts, just the white-noise roar of the sea drawing breath. That is what I love - so much peace.

On our second day I dived with Coco, a marine biologist from Sicily who was doing a course on coral conservation. This was my first boat dive, and we set off in a jukung (a thin, indonesian fishing boat) across calm waters under blue skies. Before we dived you could see the bright colour of coral through the surface of the water - it was so clear! 

We dived around Jemuluk West, passing coral that looked like large goblets or meadows or small antlers which fish darted in and out of. Diving is slow business; you fin along to keep yourself buoyant, not to move faster. To move fast would be to miss the world around you, and sometimes I would try to stop at one place, so I could observe a dancing family of clownfish or the lattice of a sea fan. 

My heart's wish had been to see a turtle, and I was happy on the first day to see the silvery image of one in the distance, but I was not prepared for the abundance of turtles on this diving day. We saw turtle after (hawksbill) turtle, close enough to see the algae growing on their shells and the wrinkles around their dark eyes. 

A very different sort of encounter occurred later on in the first dive. During the dive we finned near an unusual looking starfish. Coco pointed it out, and we stopped and stared as was the etiquette for when we saw something unusual or beautiful. This starfish was the orange of a highlighter, and had vicious looking spikes sticking out all over its body. After looking at it for a short while, our dive instructor took out the metal stick he used to point at objects and drove it through the fleshy middle of the starfish! I was shocked - Coco later said she saw my eyes go wide - and for the rest of the dive the starfish hung, impaled on the metal stick which the dive instructor held gingerly away from him. 

When we surfaced, Coco and the dive instructor explained that the starfish was a Crown of Thorns sea star - a carnivorous predator that feeds on coral. They aren't bad in and of themselves, but because many of their predators (larger carnivorous fish) had been overfished by humans, there are too many of them and they feed on coral. The dive instructor had impaled it - which wouldn't kill it, as these starfish are remarkably hardy and can regenerate when injured - to prevent it from further feeding on the coral. He also took pains to avoid touching it because they are highly venomous; they told me the story of someone who'd buried a crown of thorns star beneath a tree, and came back to discover that the tree had died! We left it in a sunny spot to dry out and die. 

On our last day we dived the Tulamben wreck. There were more divers here and visibility wasn't as good but it was an exciting day because it was the day Jacob, Izzy and Mark would complete the last of the three open water dives necessary to get their license! Swimming through the wreck was slightly discombobulating; things appear closer and larger in the water and so it would seem like the gaps in the ships hull that Nyoman swam through were impossibly small until we followed suit and wove through the wreck with no problem. 

The next leg of our journey was to Ubud, the apparent 'cultural centre' of Bali. In all honesty, I did not love Ubud and don't wish to return. It was crowded with tourists, so much so that when you walked the streets the few local faces you saw were shop owners, touts, or drivers, and this made me feel like I was part of a problematic part of tourism where a place becomes a contained for tourists and a home for its own people. What I did enjoy were the little things, like seeing the offerings placed on the ground each morning, filled with flowers, incense, and sometimes little biscuits or cigarettes. I think I was also feeling the after effects of the intensity of the past few months, and I felt teary and fragile on that day in Ubud.

 

So it was a relief to escape to Munduk the following day. Munduk is in the North of Bali, and we were hiking a mountain there. We met our guide, Nalom, who used to be a journalist and was inspired to set up his own travel company to provide a more authentic experience of Bali. He partnered with Komang, a village chief in Munduk, whose home we stopped by for breakfast (also where we met the sweetest little kittens.)

We were hiking Mt Lesung, which requires a local guide and so halfway through our drive there we stopped to pick up Putu, a pint-sized woman who we later found out was agile as a cat and could out pace us all on the steep and slippery slopes of the mountain. She pointed out coffee plants, avocado trees and all manner of plants as we walked. At one point, where I was clinging on to my hiking stick for dear life as we trod on loose soil and slippery leaves, Putu calmly stripped a single palm leaf off a tree, and after about five minutes of folding and weaving, had turned it into a hat! What a legend.

After descending the mountain we kayaked across Tambligan lake while the clouds threatened to pour above us, and had lunch under the shelter of a seven hundred year old tree. Before we kayaked, Putu explained the Balinese naming system to me. In Balinese families the first born child is usually called Putu, or Wayan, the second born child Made or Kadek, the third child is named Nyoman or Komang, and the final child is usually named Ketut. If more than four children are born in a family then the names just repeat in the cycle! This way, you'd know the birth order of a person just from their name. So our diving instructor was the third born child of a family, and Putu was the oldest child among her siblings.

The final stop before our long ride back to Ubud was by the entrance to a waterfall. We walked many steps down and got changed into our swimsuits and approached the water. "Is it cold?" I'd asked Nalom. "It's...fresh." he replied. I dipped my toes in and it was cold, but there was nothing for it but to wade in. Jacob took a few steps and dove in, whole body, emerging with the biggest grin on his face and his arms out wide. I took swam, frog style, for a little while, gasping with the cold. We took turns standing under the thundering weight of the waterfall, letting it pummel our shoulders and backs. Then we walked out, humbled and feeling, like Nalom said, fresh.