long time, tossing it in the air, whispering to it, singing to it, then pushing it along the floor like it was a Matchbox car. Finally she sat upon it in a quiet corner, eyes closed, singing to herself, buried in some mystical, invisible compartment of space all her own.
I asked Wayan what this was all about. She said that Tutti had found the tile outside the construction site of a fancy hotel project down the road and had pocketed it. Ever since Tutti had found the tile, she kept saying to her mother, 'Maybe if we have a house someday, it can have a pretty blue floor, like this.' Now, according to Wayan, Tutti often likes to sit perched on that one tiny blue square for hours on end, shutting her eyes and pretending she's inside her own house.
What can I say? When I heard that story, and looked at that child deep in meditation upon her small blue tile, I was like: OK, that does it.
And I excused myself from the shop to go take care of this intolerable state of affairs once and for all.
92
Wayan once told me that sometimes when she's healing her patients she becomes an open pipeline for God's love, and she ceases even thinking about what needs to be done next. The intellect stops, the intuition rises and all she has to do is permit her God-ness to flow through her. She says, 'It feels like a wind comes and takes my hands.'
This same wind, maybe, is the thing that blew me out of Wayan's shop that day, that pushed me out of my hung-over anxiety about whether I was ready to start dating again, and guided me over to Ubud's local Internet cafe, where I sat and wrote-in one effortless draft-a fund-raising e-mail to all my friends and family across the world.
I told everyone that my birthday was coming up in July and that soon I would be turning thirty-five. I told them that there was nothing in this world that I needed or wanted, and that I had never been happier in my life. I told them that, if I were home in New York, I would be planning a big stupid birthday party and I would make them all come to this party, and they would have to buy me gifts and bottles of wine and the whole celebration would get ridiculously expensive. Therefore, I explained, a cheaper and more lovely way to help celebrate this birthday would be if my friends and family would care to make a donation to help a woman named Wayan Nuriyasih buy a house in Indonesia for herself and her children.
Then I told the whole story of Wayan and Tutti and the orphans and their situation. I promised that whatever money was donated, I would match the donation from my own savings. Of course I was aware, I explained, that this is a world full of untold suffering and war and that everyone is in need right now, but what are we to do? This little group of people in Bali had become my family, and we must take care of our families wherever we find them. As I wrapped up the mass e-mail, I remembered something my friend Susan had said to me before I left on this world journey nine months ago. She was afraid I would never come home again. She said, 'I know how you are, Liz. You're going to meet somebody and fall in love and end up buying a house in Bali.'
A regular Nostradamus, that Susan.
By the next morning, when I checked my e-mail, $700 had already been pledged. The next day, donations passed what I could afford to match.
I won't go through the entire drama of the week, or try to explain what it feels like to open e-mails every day from all over the world that all say, 'Count me in!' Everyone gave. People whom I personally knew to be broke or in debt gave, without hesitation. One of the first responses I got was from a friend of my hairdresser's girlfriend, who'd been forwarded the e-mail and wanted to donate $15. My most wise-ass friend John had to make a typically sarcastic comment, of course, about how long and sappy and emotional my letter had been ('Listen-next time you feel the need to cry about spilled milk, make sure it's condensed, will ya?'), but then he donated money anyway. My friend Annie's new boyfriend (a Wall Street banker whom I'd never even met) offered to double the final sum of whatever was raised. Then that e-mail started whipping around the world, so that I began to receive donations from perfect strangers. It was a global smothering of generosity. Let's just wrap up this episode by saying that-a mere seven days after the original plea went out over the wires-my friends and my family and a bunch of strangers all over the world helped me come up with almost $18,000 to buy Wayan Nuriyasih a home of her own.
I knew that it was Tutti who had manifested this miracle, through the potency of her prayers, willing that little blue tile of hers to soften and expand around her and to grow-like one of Jack's magic beans-into an actual home that would take care of herself and her mother and a pair of orphans forever.
One last thing. I'm embarrassed to admit that it was my friend Bob, not me, who noticed the obvious fact that the word 'Tutti' in Italian means 'Everybody.' How had I not realized that earlier? After all those months in Rome! I just didn't see the connection. So it was Bob over in Utah who had to point it out to me. He did so in an e-mail last week, saying, along with his pledge to donate toward the new house, 'So that's the final lesson, isn't it? When you set out in the world to help yourself, you inevitably end up helping… Tutti.'
93
I don't want to tell Wayan about it, not until all the money has been raised. It's hard to keep a big secret like this, especially when she's in such constant worry about her future, but I don't want to get her hopes up until it is official. So for the whole week, I keep my mouth shut about my plans, and I keep myself occupied having dinner almost every night with Felipe the Brazilian, who doesn't seem to mind that I own only one nice dress.
I guess I have a crush on him. After a few dinners, I'm fairly certain I have a crush on him. He's more than he appears, this self-proclaimed 'bullshit master' who knows everyone in Ubud and is always the center of the party. I asked Armenia about him. They've been friends for a while. I said, 'That Felipe-he's got more depth than the others, doesn't he? There's something more to him, isn't there?' She said, 'Oh, yes. He's a good, kind man. But he's been through a hard divorce. I think he's come to Bali to recover.'
Ah-now this is a subject I know nothing about.
But he's fifty-two years old. This is interesting. Have I truly reached the age where a fifty-two-year-old man is within my realm of dating consideration? I like him, though. He's got silver hair and he's balding in an attractively Picassoesque manner. His eyes are warm and brown. He has a gentle face and he smells wonderful. And he is an actual grown man. The adult male of the species-a bit of a novelty in my experience.
He's been living in Bali for about five years now, working with Balinese silversmiths to make jewelry from Brazilian gemstones for export to America. I like the fact that he was faithfully married for almost twenty years before his marriage deteriorated for its own multicomplicated plethora of reasons. I like the fact that he has already raised children, and that he raised them well, and that they love him. I like that he was the parent who stayed home and tended to his children when they were little, while his Australian wife pursued her career. (A good feminist husband, he says, 'I wanted to be on the correct side of social history.') I like his natural Brazilian over-the-top displays of affection. (When his Australian son was fourteen years old, the boy finally had to say, 'Dad, now that I'm fourteen, maybe you shouldn't kiss me on the mouth anymore when you drop me off at school.') I like the fact that Felipe speaks four, maybe more, languages fluently. (He keeps claiming he doesn't speak Indonesian, but I hear him talking it all day long.) I like that he's traveled through over fifty countries in his life, and that he sees the world as a small and easily managed place. I like the way he listens to me, leaning in, interrupting me only when I interrupt myself to ask if I am boring him, to which he always responds, 'I have all the time in the world for you, my lovely little darling.' I like being called 'my lovely little darling.'(Even if the waitress gets it, too.)
He said to me the other night, 'Why don't you take a lover while you're in Bali, Liz?'
