The clouds pulled back their curtains on Gili island and I felt as though I knew they would. In the same way people are, life is beautiful when you accept it. Boat rides taught me that-- that when you fight the current, you get sick; that when you don't, you don't. So me and my friends stayed for the duration of the clouds and now I'm sitting in the sand looking up at the stars, inhaling a clove deeply, breathing out, and getting buried by my new friend.
Zeus (Zay-oos) is a local who works at the bungalow on the stretch of beach we prefer. When he laughs, it's husky and clear, deep and genuine. He laughs as he sweeps out a blank page on the beach and I watch his hand sink softly to write. Upside down, I can read ZEUS LAVES ANKER. He looks up at me, revealing the bashful whites of his eyes and of his smiling teeth, then he breaks into laughter-- husky and clear, deep and genuine. And I do the same.
I teach Zeus words like moon and friend and I love you. He teaches me boolang and teman and oonka cinta kamu. That's when I realize I've made a friend in the sandbox and remember what it felt like to be a kid-- to talk to someone because they want to play beside you, to do things you want to do and for no other reason, to be too curious to pay attention to all the distractions.
Zeus grabs a handful of sand and I watch it pour out between his fingers and spread over the mound I'm buried under. He pushes it around and then pats it down and teaches me something I never knew about it. I never knew that when you pat sand down it becomes heavier. You don't have to add anything to make it heavier, you just have to pat it down.
I lay back and look up at a moon that seems to stare at me from an angle it's never seen me from before. It seems to be the moon of a different planet. Inhaling the clove deeply, I taste the sweet of the filter and smile as I wonder why I've never seen the sky like this before. Zues grabs another handful of sand and sifts it through his open fingers. As he pats it down, I revel at the beauty that was always there. Waiting to be felt.
