My husband and I are leaving in September to go to Bali for a grand venture. We are planning to stay for 9 months with one short trip home to meet our grandson who will be born in December. We’re going to Bali to see what happens. This is what I’m calling following the YES.

Murray quit his job, we are renting out four rooms in our house, fostering our dog and our houseplants, and going to Bali to see what Bali wants to do to us. We have plans to be of service–helping local teachers of English, getting a recycling project started in the schools, and helping people with disabilities. We are also planning on having lots of massages, trips to the beach, and luxurious relaxing time by a pool.

These are inchoate ideas and it remains to be seen what will really happen when we get to Bali. We are open to the YES. We are following that YES.

25 Years Ago or So

The 1st time I felt a YES flutter in my heart for Bali was when I heard that the Balinese had no word for art. Everything in Bali is art. I thought to myself, “I want to go and experience what it’s like to be somewhere where everything is art.”

I felt a  fluttering in my heart and put a Post-It note in my brain: someday go to Bali.

In December of 2007 a dear friend of mine, Jana Stanfield, invited me to join her on a trip to Malaysia and Bali. There were 17 of us and we were Transformational Troubadours. Jana is a fabulous singer-songwriter, motivational speaker, and human being. We had a marvelous, magical trip that was full of songs, laughter, and connection with each others, the culture, and the natural beauty surrounding us.
I spent 7 days in Bali on that trip in December of 2007. I felt deeply healed in the cells of my body. After decades of therapy and psychological and spiritual work, I found a deep home in myself in Bali. I felt seen and known and understood, and before I left I asked our guide how I could best serve Bali.

Dana Lee is a wise man in his 50s, a man who had to leave the mountains of Bali to go into the city of Demizar during the revolution in order to save his life. His grandfather was murdered and they found him floating in a river. These were difficult times for the Balinese to say the least.

Dana is full of wisdom and heart, and when I asked him how I could serve Bali he answered immediately: “Bring more people to Bali like you. Help us learn English and help us learn computers.”

Okey-dokey, I said to myself, “will do.”

I Have Returned!

Each time shortly before I returned to Bali I’d think, “Did I make this up?  Have I exaggerated Bali’s beauty and my love of its people?”  I’d step out of the airport, feel the humidity surround me and think, “No.  I love it here, and this is not even the good part.”

Since my 1st visit I have gone back to Bali 4 more times for longer and longer stays. In March 2010 during the Balinese New Year’s Day of silence, I completed the sentence to myself: “If I weren’t afraid, I would…”

Here was my answer: if I weren’t afraid, I would move to Bali.

Are you kidding me? What about my husband? He’d only been in Bali once, he has a job, and he loves his dog. Could we leave our home, his job, our friends and our life, in fabulous Corvallis, OR to come and see what could happen to us in Bali?

A few days later when he arrived in Bali for his 2nd visit, I asked him if he would consider moving to Bali. He said Yes. The huge YES to life.  What a guy!  I know how lucky I am most of the time to have a husband as wise, sweet, funny, hard-working, honest, and creative as my Murray.  Since we create our own reality, I’m giving myself full credit for inventing Murray.

So now we are following this YES, this YES to aliveness and adventure. We’ve been working since we returned from Bali to get everything ready for this sojourn that begins in September. We know we’re coming back for sure to meet our grand baby, but after that we don’t know what we’ll be doing. We might become world hoppers, people who travel all over the world and come home for short stays to hug and kiss and love up children, grandchildren, and friends and then hop right back out into the world again to see what will happen.

Carpe Diem

I’m turning 60 in September and Murray will turn 56 in October. We are healthy and lively and now is the time. As my dear friend Neil Gladstone, singer-songwriter, said in a recent concert, “time is slipping away.”

What Does this Have to Do with You?

Time is slipping away for all of us, and all of us are in different places in our lives. When my children were young, the YES in my life was living next to an elementary school and the park, so they could walk to school and play with their friends without having to be driven around. It was taking them camping and canoeing and skiing and rafting. It was giving them time and space to invent their own games and settle their disputes.

When my children were little they were the yes in my life. My daughter is 32 now and my son will turn 30 the day we fly away to Bali. They are fabulous human beings with good jobs and outstanding partners. Though the timing of being out of the country when my 1st grand child is born has been a bit troubling to me, I’m deciding that is part of the Yes as well. I have the rest of my life to love this grandchild well. He will know us and know he is loved by us. And we might perhaps be the coolest grandparents ever–world hoppers that we may turn out to be.

Our Yes may bring us back to Corvallis where we have many friends, a gorgeous garden, and a house full of color and art and love. We are living in paradise, and we are following our Yes to another paradise to see what happens to us. It is scary, exciting, thrilling, and is opening us to new parts of ourselves in a way nothing else could.

Joseph Campbell said follow your bliss. I’ve added follow your bliss or it will stalk you. If you want to find your bliss, listen for the little fluttering suggestions that are in you, and follow them one step at a time to see where you end up. You might end up in Bali and you might end up in your own backyard.

I will keep you posted on our journey, hoping our adventure will help you find the courage to follow your YES wherever it leads you.  Let’s all die with no regrets, shall we?