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June 14th, 2024

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia 

My open gashes exclude me from all of the aquatic activities that this island is known for.  Luckily, it’s also known for its abundantly accessible psychedelic mushrooms, so today I was able to embark on exploration nonetheless.  

After drinking a smoothie with pineapple, lime juice, and psilocybin fungi around noon, I was glued to a shoreside beach chair, experiencing a tear-inducing outpour of divine love.  The universal clarity that the psychoactive substance augured healed boundless fear, resentment, ignorance, and anger that I was storing in my heart.  I buried my face in my bucket hat and cried for hours.  

The cafe that provided me with the miracle concoction, a wooden hut constructed atop white sand, scored my introspective voyage with their tastefully-curated playlist of reggae, nineties rap, and techno.  “Exodus” by Bob Marley accompanied my light-filled peak.  For me, that song will forever recall today’s journey.  

As the mushrooms began to wear off, I shyly blinked my eyes open, greeted by a lush island landscape of such picturesque tranquility that I sincerely doubted its existence.  Like countless other vistas I’ve encountered since leaving home, it looked more like a Microsoft Windows stock screensaver than a tangibly real-life occurrence.  Snorkelers paddled, kayakers oared, and swimmers stroked through clear and pristine waters as brightly blue as the sky above.  Gentle waves lapped innocently onto the soft sand before me.  In the distance, the greenery of Lombok’s mighty mountains loomed.  The Earth was safe and still.  

Once the cafe’s booming music, edging into deep-house territory, exceeded the tempo of my vibration, I stood up and departed from the stunning view.  Turning around, walking towards the boardwalk, I locked eyes with a sunbather. 

“I heard you’re from New York,” she called out.  

Shocked, I responded, “Who on Earth told you that?!?”

“That guy,” she jested, pointing at the waiter I’d earlier engaged in small talk as I sipped my psychonaut smoothie.  “I’m from New York too!”

“What are the chances!  What part are you from?”

“Lower Manhattan.”

“Me too!  I’m from Battery Park City,” I glowed.  

“I’m from fourteenth and second.”

I cackled, “That’s not Lower Manhattan!”  Growing up on the island’s southernmost tip, I stubbornly denote only the land below Houston street as Lower Manhattan.  “Ever heard of the Salk School of Science?”

“Yes!”

“I went there!”

“I went to Baruch,” the sunbather confessed, gasping, revealing that we’d attended rival middle schools across the street from each other.  “I also went to PS 234.”

“Shut your mouth.”  I was in disbelief.  “I went to PS 150!”  These institutions, our respective elementary schools, were also literally across the street from each other.  “I’m stunned.  It’s been so long since I’ve had such an intimate reminder of home.  Thank you.”

“My pleasure!  I hope it’s a good reminder.  Cheers to us for fleeing from the fast-paced rat-race matrix!”

Our subsequent dialogue, enduring long past sunset, only uncovered more unbelievable synchronicities.  She shared a name — Audrey — an astrology placement — Taurus — and an alma mater — Goldsmiths — with one of my dearest childhood friends.  Despite being eight years my senior, she’d experienced a brick-city adolescence symmetrically analogous with mine.  

Audrey came to Indonesia out of escapist exasperation, blaming burnout.  She runs a business, with seven employees, committed to reclaiming New York real-estate and transforming it into enriching community space.  We share an unshakable urge to uplift our city’s sagging morale.  She validated and inspired me immensely.  

We’ve made plans to go snorkeling tomorrow! 

June 15th, 2024

Gili Melo, Indonesia

Given the raw flesh of my scooter injuries and the rambunctiously kinetic atmosphere of my hostel, my tenure upon the Gili Islands has thrown a considerable wrench in my daily spiritual practices, rendering moments of meditative stillness infrequent rarities.  Yesterday’s psychedelic indulgence did convene me with God, albeit down a different path than I’m accustomed to, but the cosmic heart-swelling I felt under the influence paled against my experience swimming alongside sea turtles today.  

The dive solidified my belief that these aquatic creatures are the most elegant and inspiring constituents of the animal kingdom.  One specimen was initially left bashful and fearful by the snorkelers swarming it, tucked into its shell against the seafloor, but once my patience had exceeded that of my excursion-companions and I lingered in solitude alongside the oceanic jewel, it eventually swam up to the surface, face-to-face with my goggles.  Alone with the turtle, I was shown its compassionate and playful demeanor.  Its flippers flapped gracefully.  Its tiny mouth kissed the sunlit water.  I resisted all quaking urges to reach out and embrace it in a tight hug.  My affection would have been tragically misinterpreted.  

Once my Hawksbill friend drifted away, my gaze fell to the bustling ecosystem on the sandy surface beneath me.  Lush and colorful coral arrangements, swaying elegantly per the tame tide, set the scene for microcosmic jungles of neon fish to frolic through.  Several species I witnessed evoked the personified characters of Finding Nemo, budding my disbelief that the animated ensemble was indeed founded on honest biology.  All in all, the harmonious plethora of ecstatic sea life buzzing beneath the waterline of Gili Melo reminded me of nature’s unfailingly creative perfection.  

The plunge was such a thrill that, when I regressed ashore to find my motorbike gashes highly macerated, I took the complication in stride and carried no regrets.  My hydro-immersion was indubitably worth the risk.  Is it naive of me to sincerely believe that venturing into nature has led me towards the healing power of abundant love, thereby away from bacterial infection?  Only time will tell.  

June 16th, 2024

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

Zoe has joined me on Gili Trawangan, to my utter delight.  After I welcomed her at an Indonesian-style lunch buffet, we biked to the island’s far side, where Zoe baptized herself in Gili’s cyan waters while I read Marquez on the shore, in effort to protect my healing lesions.  Between pages of my book, I peeked beyond its spine at Lombok’s lush peaks towering over Zoe’s floating body.  She’d just come from a multi-night stay on Lombok, expressing that the unfamiliar island cast a bleak shadow upon her temperament, leaving her antisocial and glum.  Upon seeing my face, she claimed, her spirit lifted right back up.  I was flattered. 

She has a highly positive influence on me, too.  Not only does she make me feel absolutely comfortable, free to express myself with honest integrity, but she faillessly ignites a highly gleeful facet of my spirit that, otherwise, I cannot consistently summon on demand.  Watching her body bob up and down, half-submerged in the shy tropical tide, I knew that her presence could only enhance the good fortune that Gili T had already shown me.  

After Zoe emerged from the surf, I had the privilege to cultivate her introduction to psilocybin.  Facing the setting sun, as we clinked our plastic water bottles filled with pineapple-mushroom smoothie mix, I braced her for the voyage ahead.  I suggested, “This drug will require you to relinquish all control, surrendering; you may not be fully coherent or functional, but all you need to do is listen.  The shrooms will be telling you something important.  Now, do you have any intentions for this trip?”

“I want to experience the beauty and perfection of nature,” Zoe beamed.  

I added, “I want to find pastoral stillness.”

We watched the sun transform from white into gold, sinking towards the horizon, as we sat on beachside bean bag chairs, maintaining silly chatter while we waited for the psychoactive substance to seep into our bloodstreams. 

Once we felt a telltale lightness on our jawbone and upward curl on our lips, we matched our medicine’s energy by rising from our beanbags and strolling down the beach face.  Low-hanging clouds were colored fiery orange.  Streaks of sunlight shone through their intermittent breaks.  

My every animated comment addressing the sunset’s unnervingly disarming beauty bred a booming cackle to emerge from deep inside Zoe’s belly.  Her shroomy laughter was so chronic, bellowing, and earnest that it struck me as purgation, transmutation of bottled-up energy loosened and released by the organic chemical aid.  Her unending laughter encouraged and enlivened my unabashed expression of awakened intoxication.  I was speaking every thought that came into my mind, and Zoe was erupting in chuckles whether or not she sincerely found my words funny.  I could listen to her laugh forever.  

As we trudged down the beach, witnessing the sky darken by the minute, I imparted all of my zaniest stories from my time as a Kindergarten teacher, including the time I assisted a student who pooped his pants during my lesson and the time I had to reprimand another student for serially poking his classmates’ buttholes with his finger.  At the punchline or climax of each vignette, Zoe’s giggles reached such a velocity that she had to put out her hand — signaling the abatement of my monologue — face the sea, and declare, “I’m gonna need a minute.”

By the time our red sun was wholly out of view, we were floating past a beachside cafe at which a singer, donning an acoustic guitar, was probing his audience by speaking into his microphone, “Any requests?” 

“Adele, please,” I called out to him from between cupped hands without thinking twice about my demand.  

Before I had the chance to rescind my request, however, the singer spun around to face me, clarifying, “Which song, brother?”

“Someone Like You,” I blurted out, in too deep to turn around.  

“Do you wanna sing with me, then?”

“Sure!”

Shroomed beyond belief, my attempts at reaching Adele’s highest notes fell embarrassingly short, but I hardly skimped on passion during my performance.  Zoe squatted on a cushion directly before the stage; we sang the chorus’ lyrics into each other’s eyes.  After what felt like mere seconds, my guitarist was strumming his final chord.  I took a quick bow, gave my host an affectionate hug, and skipped back towards the sea with Zoe.  

We then laid on our backs in the sand for hours, watching shooting stars paint momentary dashes in the sky surrounding the glowing half-moon.  Our attempts to decipher constellations were less than academic, though valiant.  In between flashes of white cosmic streaks, we exchanged stories of our first loves, imagined idealized reconstructions of school curriculums, and expressed heartfelt gratitude for the perfect present moment.  

Zoe turned to me, whispering, “Thank you for giving me such a good introduction to mushrooms.  It was the best first trip I could have asked for.  I really enjoyed it.  You make me feel very comfortable and free.”

June 17th, 2024

Gili Trawangan, Bali, Indonesia

For the past few mornings at La Boheme, our community breakfast of pancakes and bananas has found me engaged in riveting dialogue with twenty-one-year-old Jonas from Switzerland.  He works as the lift operator of an alpine ski resort for four months of the year, traveling nomadically for the other eight.  It was Jonas who tipped me off towards the inundated presence of magic mushrooms on Gili T; he’s enjoyed four psychedelic smoothies during his weeklong stay here.  This morning, as he described his journey from Switzerland to Indonesia, my eyes bugged out of their sockets in disbelief and wonder.  

Nonchalantly, he explained, “I came all the way here without boarding a single airplane.”

I stammered, perplexed, “Why don’t you take flights?  They’re so convenient!”

“They’re so bad for the environment.  Plus, when I take buses, trains, and boats, I get to see and appreciate all the land that I’m traveling across.  I had a wonderful time on my voyage from Switzerland to Gili.  It took four weeks.  First I took a bus from Switzerland to Germany, then another bus from Germany to the Netherlands, then another bus to St. Petersburg, then another bus to Moscow, then another bus to eastern Russia, then I actually had to bribe some undercover officers while crossing the Mongolian border.  From there, I traveled through China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore.  Finally, I took a few ferries through Indonesia and ended up on Gili T.  I haven’t been sedentary in any place for this long since I left home.  So I’ve been enjoying relaxation.”

“That’s so amazing,” I praised.  “I admire that so much.  I’m so curious about that journey, and I can’t wait to see where you go next.  Can I keep up with your travels on social media?”

In reference to the smartphone app that simply prompts daily, disappearing diptyques — pairing front-camera selfies with back-camera landscapes — from its users, Jonas offered, “Do you know BeReal?  I post on there, but I only have like four friends on that app.  You can add me if you want.  But I don’t use social media otherwise.  I don’t even keep a journal or tell my friends back home too many travel stories.  

“I find that if I tell somebody that something crazy happened to me — like, for example, that I had to bribe undercover officers — they’ll just be waiting for me to tell them something even crazier the next time we speak.  I don’t want to live in pursuit of thrills that will entertain people vicariously.  I don’t even want my travels to be perceived by them.  With that freedom and privacy, I feel totally comfortable just chilling and having calm days.  Nobody’s watching or judging me.”

Jonas’ words rang and resonated as Zoe and I watched the sun set below a cloudless horizon tonight.  A restaurant table, sandwiched between the two sandy chairs on which we sat, mounted the portable watercolor set I’d brought with me from Brooklyn.  Tonight was my first time wetting its palates.  As soon as my brush began moving across my thick, grainy paper, I kicked myself for neglecting these priceless art materials for the past month.  The meditative concentration required to harness the free liquidity of watery pigments produced within me a deeper state of relaxation than I’d experienced all week.  I was so focused on and transfixed by my composition that my attention was uncompromisingly stolen from the beautifully warm sunset climaxing directly before me.  

In compensation, Zoe and I both painted watercolor sunsets of our own.  

For the third time during the week that I’ve known her, Zoe confidently and assertively uttered the words, “This is the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen!”

To paraphrase, this life truly just keeps getting better and better.  

June 18th, 2024

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

Contrasting my stay in Nepal this winter, which saw me fully immersed in the lifestyle of a remote farming village, nearly everywhere I turn in the lush tropics of Indonesia leads me to a society halved: locals work tirelessly to maintain tourist playgrounds of comfortable escapism, making opportunities to roam off the beaten path scarce.  This must be due to the deep precedent of Indonesia’s magnetic attraction as a haven for travelers craving momentary spells of easy island life.  This ideal of simplicity caricatures the country’s hotspots, fabricating a fantasy facade of palm tree paradise lacking turmoil.  Perpetuating that utopian lie keeps Indonesian agents of hospitality handsomely paid and safe from the conflict of clashing cultures.  As inviting and warm as I’ve found even the most remote and isolated locals to be, there still exists an invisible current funneling backpackers towards non-confrontational numbness.  Would this nation rather see its visitors make obligatory commercial contributions at plush beach clubs than gain intimate understanding of its people’s native anthropology?  I’m grateful for the smattering of truly Indonesian experiences I’ve had here, but I recognize that my pursuit of their authenticity requires me to swim upstream.

Thereby, predictably, Gili Trawangan is a boundless amusement park slinging thrills galore at its tourists.  The tiny island’s permanent residents, all hailing from the nearby lands of Lombok, have moved to Gili as servants of this highly-stimulating fairground.  There are so many vices to be found in this remote speck on the ocean, in fact, that any traveler is bound to meet their weakness here.  Ice-cold beer is as omnipresent as fine-grain sand; so is every other drug imaginable, natural or synthetic.  Gili’s surfing, scuba diving, paddleboarding, snorkeling, and poolside pastimes could keep aqua-enthusiasts occupied for weeks.  Public-facing businesses spend all day and night blastic reggae and techno music, listeners disappearing into the rhythmic meditation, while the sedentary islanders’ bona fide mosques – and the gorgeous prayer music created within – are tucked away from foot traffic, as far inland as possible.  

As such, guests on this island are generally plagued with overt promiscuity and horny desperation, romanticizing far-fetched prospects of casual sex as the most adrenaline-inducing vice of all.  Since my arrival here, I’ve faced countless collisions bubbling with sexual tension.  There is no shortage of lust-inspiring beauties on Gili Trawangan, yet I haven’t engaged physically with any of them.  I find our society’s compulsion towards immediate sex with utter strangers to be an obstruction of deeper, more devotional affection.  Thanks to my abstinence, I’ve found bottomless harmony and connection with countless companions; the baggage of impulsive physicality would surely have stunted my ability to maintain lightness and manage expectations in my resonance with fellow nomads.  

This liberating realization did not find me overnight, however.  I spent most of my nineteenth and twentieth years using my body recklessly.  I’d drained myself and disappointed undeserving women in the process.  Eventually, my introduction to yoga informed my changing relationship with sex, and my only carnal encounter since has occurred within the safety of a committed relationship.  Reflecting on my hoe-phase, now bearing years of hindsight, I understand that erotic urgency interrupts love, rather than inducing it.  My parents never gave me a thorough sexual-health lecture, but they did succinctly offer the best guidance I’ve ever heard relating to the subject, explaining that all sex must be built on love, trust, and respect.  The older I get, the more that simple advice rings true.  

To helplessly vie for coitus is to relinquish inner peace and freedom to an object of attraction.  When I’m introduced to new people, I meet them, as my grateful and content self, wherever they are, never wanting anything from them, for I already possess everything that I need.  Why should my encounters with stunning knockouts be any different?  I assert that our world’s epidemic of sexual harassment is a direct result of predators’ fickle and insufficient inner peace.  As long as we pursue shallow, instant pleasures, pain is invariably right around the corner.  I vow to forego this volatility in favor of equanimity.  I vow to measure the success of my travels not by my dopamine-rush highs, but by my proximity to Buddha’s middle path.  

Love,

Etai!