Can’t you just live here permanently?

I shortened my next trip two days. It is hard to leave Ubud. So hard. Very hard. My good friend told me to stop trying to fly out. Can’t you just live here permanently? Ayu in salon has also said the same thing the other day when I told her that I would fly out for a week. I realized that actually I don’t have one good reason why I have to go – to Jakarta especially.

I thought I would spend the day with my new baby today but I found myself kesedot pintu or 'sucked by the door’, an expression my cousins and I use to describe one who cannot resist self not to come along with someone who walks out the door to go somewhere. In my case here, my good friend often made me 'sucked by the door'. He liked to hint that he’s going somewhere. When I’m interested, he would be happy if I come to accompany. Or, often, he just asked me to come along.

Today we went shopping in Kuta and Legian areas. We had planned the trip since one month ago. When I changed my travel date, I hadn’t known his plan. So it’s nice that I could join in the end. Me too need to see the world outside Ubud, within Bali. We started early so had time for coffee on the way. Then visited my friend’s not-well mother in his sister’s house. Then started the numerous on-off car to check out stuffs. It was fun. We giggled a lot. My friend liked to use me as the reason of the visit so didn’t feel bad if didn’t buy. Ini Ibu dari Jakarta mau lihat-lihat! Uh.

I bought three nice Bali artworks for the house! It’s still hard for me to tune in again on the business. It hasn’t come back yet. But yes, it’s just nice to check out what’s available in the market and what’s hot these days. My friend bought quite a lot for his shop. He’s amazed that I don’t have passion to select merchandise this trip. I told him that I still have a huge stock in Jakarta that need to be sold first.

We closed the day with ice cream before home. We feel satisfied that we have worked eight hours today. It felt so good when we passed Silakarang. So nice to be home again soon!

Picture of menjangan seluwang – symbol of the Javanese move to Bali.