The No Plan Plan

I arrived in Bali with a game plan that has long since blurred around the edges and vanished in the bright light of the sun. I was hell bent to get somewhere, be someone, do something of import.

As usual, this beautiful country took my carefully laid plans and laughed at them, it's deep rich belly laugh rolling in off the rice fields like thunder.

I spent the first weekend reuniting with my deeply missed friends, promising my mind that Monday I would begin to be productive. Come Monday, I woke up to find that my immune system had utterly checked out, leaving me with wave after wave of systemic symptoms and total exhaustion.

I lived a week of tending to my body, laying low and revisiting the practice of napping. My strength returned on the heels of the realization that Bali had done it again: completely shaken me free of all of my ideas and goals to leave me in a state of just being.


So here I sit. Totally at home in my little Lotus cottage, tapping away at my computer as the seasonal rains drum a familiar beat on the leafy green foliage of the garden.

A few prospective opportunities are nibbling away at the corners of the future in my mind, but all I know to be true is here and now in this moment. I am surrounded by people I love in a land that literally sings me to sleep each night. The mornings bring such a heavy hanging seeping surge of life that I'm drawn from my bed and into yoga, meditation, or the delicate art of just sitting, taking it all in.

I'm not too fussed about where I'm going or where I've been. I only know that in this moment I have found my bliss. All of those nagging questions are daily packing their bags and heading back to a western world where they make sense. They are foreign in this space, and like an old pair of faded jeans, don't quite fit me anymore.

Baby, I just ain't worried.
As my buddy Ryan says, “I'm on the No Plan Plan”.

Insufficient Words

Today is the birthday of a dear friend. My preferred method of honouring a loved on their day is to fill a pretty card with all of the words I can hope will convey how important and dear they are to me. My mother, for example, has boxes of such cards, from assorted special events, where I have attempted to distill my love for her in that moment.

It helps me to take stock of the depth of my gratitude for being able to relate with the fabulous human being at the centre of my focus, and it helps to communicate all of those feelings of love and appreciation that somehow get lost in the day to day.

But this friend stops me in my tracks. For the first time in my life, I have no words to describe how much she means to me. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. My hands cramp and refuse to produce verse. My heart gets too full to sing a pure song. I am left without any of the tools of communing that are familiar to me.

And how perfect, as that sort of sums up my relating with this woman.

She knocks me free from my moorings, shakes me loose from each and every one of my comfortable thoughts and habits. She sets the bar higher than I have ever been able to see, and then barely seems to notice when I fall far from it. She is always ready with a smile for me, a motherly word of advice, a friendly laugh. A simple cup of tea becomes a sacred space, a meal a special opportunity.

She will laugh and roll her eyes when she reads this, I am certain. I can just hear her saying, “Is that so?” but I feel it must be said. I feel I have to try.

I read a piece of Osho this morning that I think sheds more light on the tune of my heart than my own words are able. It's a quote from the Buddah:

“Do not ask me about the truth, about the divine, about nirvana, liberation. Do not ask me anything about such things. Just ask me how to reach there. I can show you the path, but I cannot give you the experience, not even in words.”

Don't ask me about Janny, about what it's like to sit with her, play with her, live within her garden walls. Don't ask me what it's like to know her through her children, to see how she loves her family and friends so completely. I can introduce her to you, but I cannot speak of these things with any quality. In order to know her, you must experience her friendship for yourself.

I am so delighted to share your day with you, Janny. Enjoy the shit out of every moment in that lovely shiny form of yours. May all of your days be today.

I love you.