In Letters that Need No Response (To Jack Johnson, if you know him, please send him this =))

This is my life, at sunset, on Kuta beach. Surrounded by a thousand other people, there is only one that matters to me, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, ear phones connecting me to my music, and my music to another world. Beneath a nameless tree, with soft, tan sand between my toes, I find myself behind flags draped across one tree like a banner. A cold Bintang is sweating in a coozie, my left leg kicked up on a red plastic Bintang crate. Who’s to say what’s impossible? Well they forget, this world keeps spinning. And with each new day, I can feel a change in everything… The sun remains hidden behind clouds, visible only at the last minute, and again I find myself disappointed in that last sliver of clouds above the horizon. But, I tell myself, if this is the greatest of my worries, then I must be doing all right. Colors are still splattered across the sky, more like Monet than Van Gogh, but somewhere in between. Three foot waves are closing out into the sand twenty feet from the shore, silhouettes of little heads bobbing after them from time to time. There is a crowd - always a crowd - mostly Australian vacationers, and occasionally laughter can be heard over the music. Pale-skinned men pass by with soft top and patched up boards on their heads, weary from a day of success and failure. The wind carries the occasional smell of cigarettes and sate skewers and exhaust from a passing moped. A boy changes swim trunks behind the cover of his mother, who is holding a sarong around him to protect his world. The look upon his face is still of fright and fear. I got up once to release a baby turtle back into the ocean. With odds of one in one thousand of survival to adulthood, it has slightly better chances for survival than I have in your response to my letter. And as my mind begins to spread its wings, there’s no stopping curiosity. I want to turn the whole thing upside down. I’ll find the things they say just can’t be found. I’ll share this love I find with everyone. We’ll sing and dance to Mother Nature’s song… A picturesque view of the Bukit to the south, with gentle cumulus clouds caressing the tops of rough hills, pastel colors Crayola cannot define, let alone reproduce. A cool offshore breeze has women cover their tops with shirts and sarongs, and more people gather to see the last light spray above the ocean and through the clouds, each looking for their own picture of perfection. Kuta reef is breaking in the foreground, and a tiny shape can be seen gliding in front of a broken wave as if hovering on the surface of the water. A half dozen kites are suspended in the air overhead, like hawks guarding their young, and with no intention of letting down their guard. A dog wanders past, randomly, and in no particular hurry to either harass anyone for scraps, or to stop and sniff the local smells. One last wave brings a dozen people from the water, the perfect wave, at least perfect in that moment. And so am I, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, ear phones connecting me to my music, and my music to another world… this feeling I have is Love, and I sense as though something big is about to happen, with each breath so overwhelming, the realization that I am here, right now, breathing, thinking, alive. This letter is just the beginning, I have no doubt, and should you never read it, it is probably better that way. I don’t want this feeling to go away…