Two Nyepi Resolutions

Tomorrow is Nyepi. That’s the Hindu day of silence on Bali, when everyone has to pretend they’ve left the island so Bali’s not terribly intelligent demons give up and go wherever demons live. (I’m not terribly good on Balinese cosmology: a Balinese friend I’ll call Bisnis did try and explain the two calendars, but then she got stuck and had to ask her dad, and whenever I ask her about the gods I kind of glaze over and lose focus, and I never finished the book I bought about it all either.)

Anywise, Nyepi is taken seriously here (as I’ve mentioned before). Everything stops, apart from police and hospitals; you’re not allowed to leave the house, switch on a light, or cook; there are no flights and no traffic, security guards stop anyone attempting to leave their hotel; even the local Muslim council has requested that the mosques fall silent.

We live close to a mosque – after all that time in the Middle East, the dawn call to prayer disturbs our sleep as little as routine traffic noise – so I’m curious to see whether the imam complies. He tends to give it extra welly on Sunday mornings, to piss off the Christians, and appears to let people actually practise on Bali’s myriad ceremonial days, to wind up the Hindus, but, I think, on balance, he’ll go with appeasement just this once.

My spawn will be spending Nyepi “gaming and eating cereal in a darkened room” at a friend’s house. Five teen boys left our place this morning on bicycles, armed with the last loaf of bread and two family-sized packets of cereal (but no milk! Fools!), and I won’t see them again until Sunday, when I may attempt to persuade one or more of them into the great outdoors.

Leaving me….

Lately, what with turning forty, I have realised that I am going to have to die at some point, a fact which strikes me as quite incredibly unfair and makes me extremely resentful and vaguely anxious whenever I think about it, which I do as little as possible.

Well, Nyepi is supposed to be a day of contemplation. I have invitations from a couple of friends, but I think, for once, I’ll try and use the time wisely.

I have been meaning to give up smoking for approximately fifteen years, and have, in the past, “successfully” given up for periods ranging from days to months, before starting again. (Remember Everest Base Camp? That.)

Lately, what with turning forty, I have realised that I am going to have to die at some point, a fact which strikes me as quite incredibly unfair and makes me extremely resentful and vaguely anxious whenever I think about it, which I do as little as possible. Given there’s a whole raft of fun stuff I’d like to do, and not enough time to do even a bloody fraction of it, I’d therefore like this unfortunate eventuality to happen as late as possible. Ergo, I really do need to give up smoking.

Given that I’m not allowed to leave the house, and even if I did brave the opprobrium of my community and a substantial fine to do so, I’d find all the shops shut, Nyepi presents the perfect opportunity.

So I have braved the surging queues at Canggu Deli, the local bule emporium, where people appear to be stockpiling for a bloody apocalypse rather than a 24-hour restaurant closure, and stocked up on fresh fruit and foreigner vegetables, like kale.

And I’m sincerely hoping that a little over 24 hours of enforced abstinence combined with enforced healthy eating will provide me with the kick I need to finally give up for good.

But that is only one part of this genius plan. Since exercise is an essential part of any attempt to give up smoking – fat, which I can see, is infinitely more alarming than lung cancer, which I can’t, or smoker’s cough, which usually goes away until it doesn’t – phase two of this Nyepi attempt at a healthy lifestyle is… surfing as soon as I wake up on Sunday.

Surfing is, of course, the perfect activity for anyone contemplating a midlife crisis, an expanding midline or both.

Zac and I started learning to surf on Kuta, Lombok, years ago, but that all went to pot after our Sumbawa mishap. And I’ve been meaning to get around to learning to surf again since we started living in Canggu, where a good night out begins with watching the surfers at sunset, all the cool kids surf, and a child in Zac’s class gets the first two lessons off school so she can catch the best waves.

Surfing is, of course, the perfect activity for anyone contemplating a midlife crisis, an expanding midline or both. Yoga and I have never got on – it’s not active enough, plus, especially on Bali, there’s a lot of irritating nonsense about consciousness to contend with. Diving, which I love, is far from cardiovascular – in fact, breathing hard while diving is positively dangerous. Running just seems pointless, unless you’re running after a bus or a child, or away from a rockfall or wild dogs, or whatever.

Surfing, however, is the perfect combo of zen and adrenaline. You paddle out, you loll around, waiting for a wave, and endeavouring to position yourself to catch a wave, thereby clearing your mind of all but the wave. You catch the wave, you get up, you get that vast surge of adrenaline as you ride the bloody thing, and then, if you’re me, you fall off.

Normally, if exercise hurts or makes me breathe hard, I stop. Not with surfing.

It’s at this point, gentle reader, that the cardiovascular bit comes in. Once you’re off the wave and in what’s known as the “impact zone”, you have two seconds to get back on your board and start paddling back out or you spend the next twenty minutes getting mashed by incoming surf. The genius part of this, for any lazy slob like me, is that getting on your board and paddling like hell is rendered entirely non-optional by the alternative.

Normally, if exercise hurts or makes me breathe hard, I stop. Not with surfing.

And, as my teacher, who’s currently either playing guitar in a barrel off Lombok or lounging in a hammock making Fabergé eggs out of coconuts, said, as I laboured, panting, for what felt like hundreds of metres through metre-high surf but was probably 30 metres through ripples, “You’re a smoker. This must be killing you.”

I currently have grazes on both knees and an elbow, visible bruising on my upper ribs and right hipbone, and what we used to call Unidentified Disco Wounds on hands, forearms and one foot. But, as my friend the Bag Lady remarked over the first of too many bottles of wine at sunset last night, “Your upper arms look amazing!”

And, in one’s fifth decade (and, my god, how DID that happen?!), that really is important. Selamat Hari Raya Nyepi, and may the force be with you.