The Eye of the Storm

DAY:18
LOCATION: Cairns, Bali

The fatigue hit hard. The craziness of the last few days left me curled in the fetal position, not wanting to get out of bed. Not even the plethora of mosquito bites I’d acquired could get me to move. Maybe I should just lie here all day…

Of course I didn’t. Maybe I should’ve – I was going to need my energy for my weekend with Levi - but I wanted to experience the beauty of Cairns to the last drop. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink life to the lees… Besides, I could sleep on the plane.

I bicycled over to the botanical gardens. There would be no running today, just a slow meander. I couldn’t seem to figure out the lock, and the bike tipped over, scratching my leg.

“Fuck!” My eyes welled with tears, my frustration outsized. “What the fuck?!”

I finally got it secured and sat next to a little creek, breathing hard. The rocks started to move – crabs. It’s coming, I realized. The PTSD is coming.

After my accident last summer on the 101, I’d sunk into a deep depression. One of the darkest I’d known, where nothing made sense. What was the point of any of it if I could just be wiped out in the blink of an eye? I hated cars for crashing, roads for paving over the earth, for ruining nature. I hated the system that I couldn’t change, that tortured animals, tortured humans, tortured my conscious. I hated that I’d been so happy before, on a pink cloud of a “spiritual awakening,” and now I couldn’t even see the sky. James had gotten so angry at me for my uncontrollable sob sessions – “You’re alive! You’re fine, what the hell is wrong with you?”

I had come out of it within a few weeks, as the trauma worked its way out of my body. But here I was, once again, sobbing for no reason, the world gone pointless.

No. Pull it together, Amy. Stop telling yourself stories. You know the truth – you are not your body and death is not the end. The meaning is NOW.

I got up and walked across the street to the rainforest. It greeted me with its familiar hum, its canopy offering respite from the hot sun. The mantra came back to me: life is a miracle… life is a miracle.

The flowers and spiders and palms sustained me the rest of the morning. They were there as I showered and folded my laundry, as I juiced my breakfast. They were there when I rode into town to take care of a couple of things at Europcar and the police station, and there when I met Carrie at Rusty’s Market.

“How are you feeling? Do you want to browse the market while I shop or just go straight to tea across the street?” She was introducing me to her favorite vegetarian spot, Lafew.

“We can do the market!” I wanted to sample the local fruits, the many varieties of mango and papaya, the lychees and pumelo.

They were delicious, but after 15 minutes the fatigue hit again. A near knockout. I could barely stand. I found a bench and dropped my head in my hands. How was I going to make it to Singapore? To Vietnam?

Carrie finished shopping and we ordered kombucha at Lafew. I lasted five minutes before breaking down.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t want to seem so pathetic. I just really don’t know what I’m doing. I want to run away, but then I feel like that’s taking the easy route, and I’m scared of leaving everything I know. And I want to have a family and I’m confused about James and now I’m going to see this guy and I feel like such a wreck and everybody else just seems to have it figured out. How do you do it? How did you find Kyle? How did you create the life that you wanted?”

She smiled tenderly. “Oh honey, I don’t have it all figured out. I’m ready to leave Cairns, I’ve been here five years, Australia almost 15. I miss Canada. The only thing I ever knew for sure was that I wanted kids, so I had my daughter at 20 and raised her alone. I never thought I wanted to be married, but then Kyle came along, and at first we were best friends and then it turned into this beautiful relationship and we had Mark. You can plan for the future all you want, but life is always unfolding. I try and do what makes me feel best. I like being in nature, so I won’t ever live in a city again. It seems like you’re just discovering who you are. Keep following your heart. You’re going to be just fine, I promise.”

She picked up the bill. I tried to split it with her but she insisted.

“I can’t tell you how much this means to me,” I thanked her. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you the last few days. You’ve been so kind, made me feel so… not alone.”

“You’re welcome,” she hugged me. “You’re doing great. You’re stronger than you know.”

I really wanted to believe her, but at that moment I felt neither great nor strong. I wished I could stay with them a few more days, recover just a little more. At least I was seeing people I knew in Singapore. But was I ready to see Levi in this condition?

Actually, I still didn’t even know what the plan was. As of my check-in at the Cairns airport, my saint of a high school teacher was slated to stumble out of bed at 2am and let me into their spare room. Then I’d sleep a few hours and what? Meet Levi for breakfast at 6am when his flight got in? It sounded bonkers. There had to be a better way.

Levi: I’m getting a room at the Hyatt. Trying to see if I need one for tonight or get an early checkin tom. Where are you staying?
Me: With my high school teacher and his wife. Let me know if you get the room for tonight, I could head straight there.

That would probably be the best scenario, although I didn’t want him spending a bunch of extra money on me if he didn’t have to. Not to mention meeting him in bed for a second date was pretty out there, but the whole thing was out there.

“I might be insane,” I told the woman next to me on the plane to Bali. She was super friendly, and we’d hit it off immediately. She’d asked me what I was doing, and I’d told her the whole set-up.

“I’ll tell you something insane,” she leaned in. “I was happily married to a man for 25 years, three beautiful daughters together, and then he left me for a younger woman.”

I gasped. I knew these things happened, I’d read When Things Fall Apart, I’d seen it in the movies and heard it through the grapevine. But I hadn’t had many chances to hear about it in real life. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was devastated at first, of course, worst thing that had ever happened to me in my life. But then, I met this man,” she showed me a picture. “Jose. The most beautiful person I’ve ever met. My soul mate. We’ve been together for three years, and every day feels like a miracle. And now here I am heading to Bali for the first time with my girlfriend! I booked it three days ago! We just never know what life has in store.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” I smiled. “Oh my god!! Look at that!!”

Out the window a huge black thunderhead lit up like the fourth of July. The lightening spread across the sky like cracks in a sidewalk. Because you know, there hadn’t been enough excitement in Queensland, it needed to end with a bang.

“Amazing!!” She exclaimed. “It’s like we’re in Star Wars!”

We both freaked out in a good way, then I freaked out in a bad way.

“Do you think we’re in danger? It’s so close, what if it’s hits us??” I gripped my seat. Bolts flashed in all directions. Nobody else even paid attention – they had their window shades closed.

“Our pilot wouldn’t be flying if he thought we were in trouble,” she reassured me. “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Nor had I. We watched until the sky went completely black, then I fell fast asleep on her shoulder.