I celebrated 26 turns around the sun in Bali!
In recent years I started to see birthdays as the remarkable occasion they truly are, taking them as a pretext to do something special instead of dwelling on the inexorable passage of time and the daunting idea of getting older. Now I was closer to my 30s than to my 20s, behold!
I also like to think that what we choose to do on our birthdays sets the tone for the rest of that year, metaphorically speaking. When I turned 25, I flew from Warsaw, where I was working, to meet my mom in Geneva, and we ended the day in Annecy, a small French town. Back then, I didn’t quite grasp the meaning of being in 3 countries in a period of 24 hours, but now I see it as an omen for the year that awaited me, at a time I hadn't conceived nor planned with seriousness venturing through Southeast Asia. As Paulo Coelho said in an interview, "Omens are the individual language in which God talks to you (...) They are this strange but very individual language that guides you towards your own destiny. They are not logical; they talk to your heart directly". And a year later, 7 countries in 7 months! Indeed, the future reserved me a lot of moving around...
For this year’s celebrations, I decided to camp overnight in Mount Batur. Most people visit on a morning tour, waking up (too) early, around 1AM, to drive to the base and start a hike submerged in darkness to see the sunrise… I generally don’t sign up for any plan that prevents me from having a decent night of sleep, and specially on my birthday it was important to be well humored so I could be my best company, away from family & friends. If one has begun to befriend oneself, such a person can never be alone! So, I found a guide who took me to the summit under a different arrangement.
We started the hike on the afternoon of my birthday, in time to see a dreamy sunset warmed up by the steam of the volcano. The last considerable eruption was in 1926, destroying the upper part of the then highest peak in Indonesia; now the summit is "only" 1717M. After, we set up a tent facing a spectacular night sky that sent my way 2 shooting stars, one of them was certainly my dad saluting me all the way from a distant part of the universe; we rested until dawn, waking up to thousands of people with head lanterns awaiting the sunrise. Sometimes being "high maintenance" pays off!
That evening in the tent I reflected on the meaning of the day. And I interpreted that this new chapter would be a challenging one, with a tricky trajectory, just as the hike up, struggling at times with the volcanic sand that prevented a steady pace; and it would also be a year of ups & downs, in an attempt to overcome perceived limitations, although the efforts employed in the chosen endeavor would be well rewarded, as shown by the breathtaking views I was graced with above the clouds upon completing the hike up.
As I review this text, half a year has passed. And I can already share that my premonitions were correct. At the time of writing, I'd been in Ubud, the spiritual center of Bali, for a month, a longer stay marked by enriching learning and raising awareness around topics related to the “self” and the so-called “spiritual community”. And eventually I returned to Portugal, thinking that being stationary for a while would help gain clarity and plan the future, an intention that would be conditioned by the post-travel blues, a theme worthy of an entirely new journal entry.
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