The End of Your Life Book Club

Balinese motorcycle-riding
goldfish salesman

Eat, Pray, Love notwithstanding, and in spite of having been here before, I had forgotten what a spiritual, healing sort of place Bali is. And how beautiful it is, that there is art everywhere. Also little offerings, on doorsteps, and sculptures and "family temples".

Had an excellent lunch or dinner or breakfast, whatever it was, yesterday. It involved excellent fresh spring rolls, tofu with peanut sauce...I don't think there will be any problem getting healthy vegetarian food here.  Last night I had a coconut, lime, mint, and lichee juice. They don't add sugar to the fruit juice, yay! Only frustration, and it was a big one, was that a new sim card failed to work in the phone that I pretty much specifically bought for that purpose. Candradasa gave me a few tips so going to try again today.

Cull brought me a book The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. It's great for literary types such as us. Here's something on page 23 I was struck by (while wide awake at around 4am this morning):

Everything would be all right, everything would be possible, anything could be salvaged or averted, as long as we all kept running around. 

At Warung Schnitzel

He quotes a lot of other books, literary and otherwise. One of them is The Etiquette of Illness by Susan Halpern. His rendition of the advice from that book:

1. Ask: Do you want to talk about how you're feeling?
2. Don't ask if there's anything you can do. Suggest things, or if it's not intrusive, just do them. 
3. You don't have to talk all the time. Sometimes just being there is enough. 

His mom had pancreatic cancer.

I'm sitting on our porch in front of a super green garden. It is overcast, the hum of insects is constant. A fly is walking around this screen. Roosters crow all night. We're telling ourselves we should go out now (9 am) before it gets too hot, but we're still sitting here...