Chasing Amy-Lou

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia;

Today was my birthday! Happy Birthday to me!

The thought of turning 32 was not something I was particularly relishing. In fact, I wasn’t overly fussed about my birthday or about celebrating it which made me conclude that I was getting old – not caring about turning another year wiser happens when you reach a certain age, right? And if so, I was anticipating the day when I’d actually forget my birthday, but I was sure that wouldn’t happen for a long time yet.

Anyway, the fact that I was in Bali, in Ubud, on my birthday, was good enough for me. I’d had a wonderful weekend (the jazz festival had been a birthday treat to myself), I’d had my lunch paid for yesterday by San Fran (she was a very special human being), and I had decided, on a whim, that since all the yoga, the healing and the talk of chakras and karma had done me so well this last week, that I’d treat myself to one last Balinese birthday gift – a Chakra Healing Workshop at the yoga studio I’d been attending.

I couldn’t really afford to do the workshop (I couldn’t really afford the jazz festival but I’d gone anyway); I’d be dipping into cash I would desperately need once I was back home but I thought, “sod it” and YOLO’d all the way to the bank to withdraw a hefty amount of coin.

The course was very intense. Very intense but very spiritual too. It concentrated on all manner of things to do with auras, chakras, alignments in the body, unbalanced chakras, colours of aura, ways to heal chakras and balance them, ways to align chakras, food to eat to maintain better balances, reflexology, pain, aromatherapy, sound healing, colour healing, etc etc. There was a hell of a lot of information to take in. And Devie (the workshop leader and the one who’d told me I was a number 9 and vibrated on a different astral plane (who knew!)) was exceptionally informative.

If I was being honest though, the course could’ve been divided across two days. The last hour felt pretty rushed, and the information provided within that hour was the information we’d all wanted. There were six of us in the workshop and we’d been looking forward to discovering about the types of foods to eat in order to help heal or balance an ailing chakra (in my case, my solar plexus chakra was overactive…but so were a couple of other chakras…and food was very important to me). Nevertheless, I gained a lot from the workshop and in spite of feeling a little bombarded, I’d learned some valuable skills and had also made a very good friend in the process.

The lady I’d sat next to all day was originally from Canada, but she’d lived close to Melbourne for the last 13 years, so, for the purpose of this exercise, I’ll call her Canabourne. Canabourne was beautiful – not just externally, but internally too. She radiated a loving, generous spirit yet came across as an independent woman, a warrior, a survivor; and the more I conversed with her, the more I gathered admiration for her.

After the workshop, Canabourne insisted we go for dinner and drinks to celebrate my birthday. Feeling anxious about my financial situation she reassured me that we’d find somewhere cheap. And we did. A cute little Indonesian/Indian place where we devoured veggie curries and tasty samosas. And I was shocked when Canabourne offered to pay for my meal. I hate not paying my way, and I often feel like a charity case when others offer to foot the bill, whatever the occasion – call it my stubbornness, call it feeling like I need to prove my independence, call it my stoic Britishness rearing her ugly little head, whatever – someone else paying for me just felt a little uncomfortable. This time though, after much persuasion (even San Fran had to wrestle with me over paying for lunch yesterday), I relented, and though I felt twinges of guilt, I allowed myself to follow the moment, enjoying my birthday in the company of another new friend, really interesting conversation, and plenty of Bintangs.

As birthdays go, it hadn’t been the wildest one I’d ever had (I certainly hadn’t been sniffing cocaine off the arse of a male escort, although I did receive an email from Man City’s Sergio Aguero, so every cloud and all that) but in all honesty (and seriousness), it had been everything I’d wanted at the time. And Ubud just kept delivering; delivering everything I obviously needed, day after day after day. When the time eventually came, it was going to be hard to leave this special little place.