Eat, Pray, Love

they seem to have surrendered completely and forever: ambition. Needless to say, there’s a
lot of drinking.
Of course, the precious Balinese town of Ubud is not such a bad place to putter away your
life, ignoring the passing of the days. I suppose in that way it’s similar to places like Key West,
Florida, or Oaxaca, Mexico. Most expats in Ubud, when you ask them how long they’ve lived
here, aren’t really sure. For one thing, they aren’t really sure how much time has passed since
they moved to Bali. But for another thing, it’s like they aren’t really sure if they do live here.
They belong to nowhere, unanchored. Some of them like to imagine that they’re just hanging
out for a while, just running the engine on idle at the traffic light, waiting for the signal to
change. But after seventeen years of that you start to wonder... does anybody ever leave?
There is much to enjoy in their lazy company, in these long Sunday afternoons spent at
brunch, drinking champagne and talking about nothing. Still, when I am around this scene, I
feel somewhat like Dorothy in the poppy fields of Oz. Be careful! Don’t fall asleep in this nar-
cotic meadow, or you could doze away the rest of your life here!
So what will become of me and Felipe? Now that there is, it seems, a “me and Felipe”? He
told me not long ago, “Sometimes I wish you were a lost little girl and I could scoop you up
and say, ‘Come and live with me now, let me take care of you forever.’ But you aren’t a lost
little girl. You’re a woman with a career, with ambition. You are a perfect snail: you carry your
home on your back. You should hold on to that freedom for as long as possible. But all I’m
saying is this—if you want this Brazilian man, you can have him. I’m yours already.”
I’m not sure what I want. I do know that there’s a part of me which has always wanted to
hear a man say, “Let me take care of you forever,” and I have never heard it spoken before.
Over the last few years, I’d given up looking for that person, learned how to say this hearten-
ing sentence to myself, especially in times of fear. But to hear it from someone else now, from
someone who is speaking sincerely...
I was thinking about all this last night after Felipe fell asleep, and I was curled up beside
him, wondering what would become of us. What are the possible futures? What about the
geography question between us—where would we live? Then there’s the age difference to
consider. Though, when I called my mother the other day to tell her I’d met a really nice man,
but—brace yourself, Mom!—“he’s fifty-two years old,” she was completely non-flummoxed. All
she said was, “Well, I’ve got news for you, Liz. You’re thirty-five.” (Excellent point, Ma. I’m
lucky to get anyone at such a withered age.) Truthfully, though, I don’t really mind the age dif-
ference, either. I actually like that Felipe is so much older. I think it’s sexy. Makes me feel kind
of... French.
What will happen with us?