Day 269: Villa Idanna — A Great Playdate — Monster Geckos
October 1! This means we’re into the final quarter of this adventure. People have asked us: Has it just flown by? The answer is no.
That sounds like we’re having a bad experience, which isn’t true at all. Au contraire, this has been the experience of a lifetime!
French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau said that to lengthen time, you need to “fill it, if you have the chance, with a thousand new things.” We’ve taken this to an extreme, but there are lessons to be learned for sure. More on this at the end.
This morning we had breakfast and school in our peaceful house. Willa’s still cranking away on her chapter book, suddenly absorbed in the fun of creative writing. Haven’t seen excitement from her about writing at all this year, so I’m delighted. I think it’s because she’s enjoying reading so much — especially Harry Potter — and inspiration has struck. Today she completed chapter 9.
Around 11:30 Nengah our property manager/host drove us to a nearby restaurant that was very chill and had good Balinese food. We rode from there into “town” which was really just one road through a slightly denser cluster of one-story buildings surrounded by rice paddies. Got it.
We had big plans for the afternoon back out Villa Idanna: A playdate! We recruited Nengah and Wayan’s two daughters, 12 and 11, respectively, to come “babysit,” and Wayan brought his 4yo soccer-loving son too.
The kids spent a solid four hours playing together. Drawing, painting, swimming, soccer, soccer, soccer. In the last half hour Nengah’s dog Popo even showed up to romp around with everyone. It was, I think, the most fun they’ve had in a very long time.
Willa even said: “Why did we waste so much time in Asia on temple tours???” Meaning, I presume, that we should have known better and done playdates instead.
Not only did we love that the kids had someone their age-ish to play with, we also had our own plans: Massages! A guy from town came to the house and gave Teddy and I both 90 minute Balinese massages on the porch, about $15 each. Maybe one of the best massages I’ve ever had in my life?
By 6:30 we were saying bye to the kids (and Popo!) and ready for dinner. Once again we were joined by the massive geckos overhead. There was even a big frog on the curtain rod in Teddy and James’s room that we noticed as we were getting ready for bed. Nangah was still around and scooped him up and outta the way. Yeesh.
MISC:
There’s science now to back up the theory that you can slow down time by filling it with new experiences (a TED Talk told me so! Ha!).
It showed that if you stick to a routine, you don’t create new memories, and memories are what make time feel slower. Without new memories, you look up at the end of day/week/year/lifetime and say: “Where did all that time go?” because you don’t have anything that stands out as particularly memorable.
That doesn’t mean a routined life is bad. A routined life can be very fulfilling and meaningful! It’s just that it will appear to pass faster!
I don’t want to be caught off guard when it’s time for Willa and James to leave the nest — the whole “don’t blink because it’ll be over before you know it” thing.
I want to savor this time in our kids’ lives and the best way to do it is by creating new memories. We’ve obviously taken that to an extreme — there are plenty of ways to live this way back in NYC too, and we plan to make a giant effort to do so when we’re back.
