A Soldiers Story and Mags Returns...

O.K. my friends sit back because the magic of Bali continues to envelop me. I swear I couldn't make this up if I tried...so once again let me set the scene for you.

I am on an island in Lombok, Gili Trankang right next to Bali. This is an island of 700 people with no car, motorbikes and no police. This is not a lush resort but a Rasta party island. You are met at the dock by Tuk-Tuk carriages pulled by very sad horses. Their is poverty here, you just can't escape it, the power goes out several times a day, hot water is never a guarantee and it is all salt water, very strange to the skin. My bungalow is attached to an open cafe, bar and stage facing the most beautiful turquoise, sea green ocean. Yet, there is trash in different areas and you just have to turn your head to the beauty and there is plenty of it.

When I arrived I found out most of the people on the island are Muslim. I have been in the accepting bliss of Buddhist and Hindu's so for the first time I need to keep a low profile that I am gay. In all my travels this is the first time that I have encountered any homophobia, The Rasta world is full of wonderful male affection, everyone calls you their brother yet there is that homophobic and sexist element to the Rasta world that you just can't deny. Of course it takes hours for my room to be ready. Ganja is king here and they are all stoned and move at a snails pace from the herb and the heat.

I get in the water and I have arrived it is the ocean I have longed for; crystal clear, warm in a way that takes no adjusting to the temperature, the color is spectacular and it feels like flower pedals on your skin. I have arrived..yet I am not happy. I miss my friend Roberta something awful. She longs for this water, we have always shared the ocean in a deep way and I want her here with me. I have a good cry in the water and remember my first day always takes awhile to get my footing. I also get an email from Mags that she and her daughter will be arriving in two days.This lifts my spirits and just knowing I will have some friends on the island soon is a comfort.

The place I am at is called Sama Sama it means, same same, your welcome and together. The Rasta band is really good and there is a huge dancing, drinking smoking scene going on. They play 90% Bob Marley music the happiest music on earth. I have made friends with a bartender named Zen and as I drink my scotch with all this Rasta joy bouncing and swirling around me...
I am not happy. I feel like I don't belong and like an island unto myself. Without question one of the most beautiful men I HAVE ever laid my eyes on sits next to me. He is straight and I can see he is trying to get the bartenders attention. I shout "hey Zen, can you get my buddy a drink" my friend says "thank for the hook up." I find out he is from Canada. Let me say the best people I have met on this trip that weren't native are Canadians...I love these people.

O.K. so here is where it all begins. For this blog I will call my friend Huck. We start talking and zoom in on this really amazing conversation. This dude is smart, insightful, profound and we are in it. About an hour into the conversation he hits a curve ball in my direction that almost knocks me off my seat. Make no mistake, I catch the ball and throw it right back. He says he is a soldier on leave from Afghanistan and he goes back to war in a few days. You can talk to people outside of America for the longest time and they don't ask you what you do---it doesn't identify you. This was the last thing I would have ever thought this beautiful sensitive spirit would do. I turn and say O.K. let's break this sucker down. Our conversation goes deep and wide fast and furious. We close the bar and he is now even more fascinating to me. It is 2:00AM and I assume I am off to bed. Huck turns to me and says "Here is how I see it, we are not done with this conversation, I am not done with you, lets go get some weed and smoke a joint on the beach." I say I am sooooooo there. Scoring of course takes all of 5 minutes and it even comes with papers. Mind you I have not been high for 6 weeks and we sit on this ocean that is lit keeping the sea green waves black even at the dead of night. Huck and I continue to share our lives and I learn that he had an epiphany in Afghanistan that has transformed him. He went in to kill lives and now he wants to save them. I can't really say much more but trust me the exchange of who and why we are was profound. Every now and then I would just burst out "Jesus Christ you are beautiful" he would lower his head and smile and say thanks. He knew I was not coming on to him it was so beyond that. Yet my appreciation for his unquestionable beauty had to be exclaimed from time to time. We say good night and he tells me he is getting an enormous tattoo tomorrow and to stop by the tattoo shack with the hammock on the porch..

I was lying in bed that night thinking about how I was feeling sorry for myself and longing to be around my own gay brothers. I was feeling a bit resentful of the homophobia I knew was coming at me from the straight men. The last person I ever thought would rescue me from this state of mind I was in was a straight soldier.

I must take us back to the bar for a minute. While the soldier is telling me his story the Rasta band plays a Rasta version of Leaving on a Jet Plane, I shit you not. This has floored me...
I think O.K. this song must be a hit in this region. So I Google the song the next day. I was wrong it was written by Jon Denver and many people recorded it but it was a monster #1 hit for Peter, Paul and Mary. It is Mary's beautiful vocal we know. I look up every version and reference to the song. I find out that Janis Joplin recorded it. When I get back to the states I am so all over that. But I can't find a bloody connection to Thailand of Bali. I ask the lead singer why did you sing that song? He tells me cause someone is always leaving Sama Sama and bags are back and kept by the bar. When he heard the song he thought it would be a good song for Sama Sama. He never plays it because it is sad and the their are really no sad Reggae songs. I just say, alright Gods keep playing with me...cause I am having so much fun with this.

The next day I go to bed at 7:00AM because my encounter with Huck has my mind reeling and I stay up trying to write a short story about the encounter with Huck & Jon. I stroll over to the Tattoo shack around noon. The tattoo is a huge and on a place that people rarely get them. He tells me he is getting really scared because it is going to hurt and take around three hours. I say I will hang out an keep him company. I become the Tattoo Nurse. I go back to my bungalow and get him some bills that will help him sleep. I make sure he drinks a lot of water, buy Pringles (They are everywhere), tell him funny stories, put cold towels on is forehead, document the ordeal with my camera and basically make sure he is O.K.

I watch him lay perfectly still and the tattoo artist has never done a tattoo in this area before. He is amazed, as I am at how perfectly still Huck is for the three hours of intense pain. I think to myself this is a soldier who understands all to well what a false move means.He knows how to be a statue or you could be killed. Later I interview him for my shot story on examples in combat when he must be perfectly still. It was a soldiers strength. The will and determination that I witnessed for three hours taught me more than I am able to share.

He turns to me and says you are a life saver do you realise you are saving my life. I say "Huck, saving lives isn't that what this brief encounter is all about." I tell him about John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany one of my favorite books I have read and reread on this journey. I realize I still have it and send him off with this book that I hope has a deep effect on him. I love to send care packages, sending them to Huck will give me great pleasure and it is the least I can do eh?

I am at a cafe on the dock with Huck and Daliana another amazing friend from good old Canada. She has had an amazing experience with Huck as well and we are both sad to see our soldier off. As he gets up to leave I hug him, kiss him on the cheek and tell him how special he is and he was on of the best unexpected surprises on my journey. My Dad is a Korean vet and has had to live through the horrors of the war, my lover Jim, of a many years was a Vietnam vet and has had to deal with the horrors of Agent Orange. I have a lifetime of connections to vets. I do anything I can to help my friend Vera when she does fundraisers for our troops. I suddenly understand that I have never met anyone in this crazy war. I start to worry about Huck's safety and think O.K. Gods you have been played with me enough and it has been great fun but now PLEASE turn you eyes to my friend, play with him and keep him safe, if he comes out of this he could do so much good, even typing the word "if "scares me. Yet, his bags are backed and he is ready to go....and I can't control what I can't control. I can only say to one and all say a prayer not for Owen Meany but for my new friend Huck.

Once Huck is off who comes strolling by but Mags ( we also call her Mum) and her daughter Moregg and I am thrilled to pieces that we have finally hooked up. There is a travel dance you do with people to try and meet up and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Mags is 71 and looks like Marsha Wallace from The Newheart Show except her hair is a wild burgundy color and she has the most delightful Australian accent. The important thing about Mags is that her soul is without question on of the purest souls I have ever met. This woman radiates an easy natural love that is in some state of grace. She is someone who has never gotten old...their is nothing about her that connects her to her age. Her daughter is as lovely as she is and that is no surprise. Their friendship and ability to be exactly who they are is so moving to Daliana and I. We have talked at length at what it means to watch this relationship. I

So my days on this island flow like this. We have gone on an 8 hour snorkeling trip. We watch current American cinema in these huts with bed cushions and drink scotch and pal around this island. Daliana will dance all night long and crawl into my bed at 10AM to chat while she kills and hour before seeing a friend off, I never go to bed before 4:00AM, we are big on nightcaps on the ocean and we eat and try to keep the flies off our food. I am not sure if it is traveling or this island but we all move in and out of deep personal conversations with tears and laughter. I have no doubt these people will be in my life forever. I already have a deep well of love for them.

Tomorrow Mags, Moregg and I go back to Ubud we just weren't done with the magic of Ubud. I will say goodbye to Daliana but she is in nursing school (to be a nurse in third world countries) in California so it won't be a sad goodbye. Letting go of Mags and Moregg will not be easy, it will be a miracle if I don't burst into tears.

So my far away friends, there are new friends, new chapters and new prayers. I am entering the last three weeks of this odyssey and I will leave you with this. When a character in A Prayer for Owen Meany can't feel or find God this is what Owen says. "Sit for a long time and think about all the people who are alive in your life...that you love, think of who they are and what you feel for them...that simple act is God.