Blood is seeping down Dave’s arm from a shallow fin chop. Behind him, another peeling six-foot Nihiwatu set goes unridden like the archetypal surf mirage.
Dave’s shifting his feet unstably up the sand. I wonder how bad this one’s going to be. He collapses in a cursing heap next to me.
We almost didn’t make it to Indonesia at all this year. The endless illnesses of Kindergarten had their way with us, virus after virus.
Whether by nature or by culture, as we get older it seems like we tend toward being homeostasis machines. We’re good at reading the patterns and reproducing routes. Routines lay deep neural pathways. Caring for a young child makes this clear.
Dave and I both were ready for some newness to crack open the monotony, so we booked a few weeks in Indonesia to get away from the germ pit otherwise known as school.
We couldn’t make our original flight as the three of us – myself, Dave and our six-year-old Minoa – were in a fever dream of influenza A and decidedly unfit to travel.
Maybe we should have taken that as a sign.
On Sumba Island in Eastern Indonesia, sea worms are the heralds of the harvest and
