“Well I guess I’ll just continue with my travels” she said.
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She and I met in a hostel on Kuta Lombok in 2015 when there were 2 paved roads and not much else.
I was a dirtbag surfer. Traveling out of an old backpack… weathered, gritty, with dirt and shit all over it.
She was a British girl… had been traveling for 6 or 7 months. Petite. Short blonde hair that worked for her. Not the bad short… like all these washed up american 30 somethings in 2025… trimming to try and imitate celebrities.
Beautiful short. Sun-bleached. Raw. Natural.
She had these old birkenstocks I’ll never forget. Old and weathered. Had been out in the rain a bunch.
I thought they were goofy.
She assured me they weren’t.
She wore around this black little thong 2 piece… definitely not goofy… definitely, definitely not goofy.
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“Well I guess I’ll just continue with my travels…”
We paused for a second. Didn’t make eye contact.
It was one of those private moments you share in deep love…
but a deep love that’s temporary and you both know it and the person who asked the question knows it too…
but you’re just so wrapped up in that love that you can’t really fathom the impermanence of it.
She inhaled her cigarette, exhaled… then looked out at the ocean.
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I got barrelled earlier that day.
A gift from God.
Being in the barrel of a wave is one of the more transcendent life experiences.
The faith of pulling in. The shallow and sharp reef beneath. Understanding the consequences (and high likelihood) of a fall – deep cuts and gashes on a rural island.
And the sound… The sound in the tube is the most surreal part for me… suddenly the outside world disappearing… a weird sort of vacuum mechanical white noise as the wave envelops you.
The light blue curtain separates you from the outside world… The sun shining through on your path into a new dimension.
Then you either fall… skipping down the face of the wave, sucked over the top, covering your face and praying to god the consequences aren’t that bad.
Or you make it out… miraculously…
That moment though… deep in the tube… it’s never long enough… you just wish it could last forever.. It’s never long enough…
Every one is different… the same… but different…
A portal to another dimension
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On our way back from lunch that day some Indo yelled out “bro bro!” on the side of the rural road. He snagged a shot of that barrel I got…
“Goofy rasta” was the title of the photo. I’m goofy footed and had my dreads long… it’s wild how much youths of developing countries idolize dark skinned dudes with dreads…
She got a good laugh outta that one,… “Goofy rasta hehe”
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That night she and I found some gorgeous inlet. The swell was down. It was just calm glassy little waves. Mountains in the background. Untouched sand. Nobody there. Nobody was in west sumbawa.
I’m sure there will be some day… The same way Bali got developed. The same way Lombok is getting developed.
The pattern is simple…Surfer dudes bring their lover girls to some remote and beautiful and consequential break. Just looking for empty tubes…
Get surfed out… come back to a little shack by the sea to deep connection. Raw sex. Lust or love and connection with everything that is.
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Then that spot gains a little momentum…
The surfer girlies open a little yoga studio and a little cafe…
The wrong dudes find out… who bring the wrong girls… who tik tok or insta or snapchat or whatever the fuck they’re all doing nowadays that’s putting all the gems on the map
More of the wrong girls come.
More of the wrong dudes come to try and get more of the wrong girls…
Posers… literal posers…
Then it’s ruined…
And then 2 years later my friends from college start talking about some cool new spot that they wonder if “like have you ever been there, nick?”
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“Well I guess I’ll just continue with my travels…”
This quote was Issy’s response to an intrusive couple that had asked about our story and what we were gonna do when I left indonesia for the U.S. peace corps in Mozambuqie…
Such a sad reminder of the finite when we were just chilling in timelessness at this indo-australian couple’s bungalow… that couple had been chilling in timelessness for a while… they had a little garden to the left and would serve up these huge curry bowls to all the surfers every afternoon
We were so obviously deep in love… so obviously deep in the moment… the nerve of that other couple to take us out…
But I’ll never forget that moment. We were both so surprised I think by the question. Like, how could we even concern ourselves with “what’s after?” when the moment was so good.
We were just so caught up in it. We hadn’t even thought about it ending. What would happen when it ended? Why would it end? How could something that visceral even end?
And could something that felt so powerful and real… dreamy… but real… really die for quotidian / finite-structural circumstances?
…….
Yes. The answer is yes. Most things like that do.
The deeper I get into life. The more this is evident to me.
The dream of life dies with the quotidian… with reality.
The quotidian is insidious.
Reality is limiting.
We have to guard against the creep of the quotidian.
Guard against the seemingly inexorable “reality.”
Or we’ll be left on our death bed with deep, deep regret… Regrets of all the bullshit limitations we hoisted upon ourselves and unrelentingly held onto for no fucking reason at all.
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Is it even possible to avoid the quotidian without letting go?
To live in a dreamy world while grasping for our perceived reality?
Because once something is fully integrated and accepted doesn’t it become quotidian?
Once something becomes finite / structural / measurable… doesn’t that make it real?
So then… logically… isn’t the whole art to a soulful and dreamy life just as much about letting go as it is about falling in love in the first place?
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Life’s big questions…
What I do know is moments like these…the one here that issy and i shared as we motorcycled around the Indonesian archipelago…are the point of life.
It’s why I could die tomorrow with tears of joy… because of how beautiful and full it’s all been.
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EPILOGUE
Issy and I still talk from time to time. She has a kid with some guy.
I’m doing my thing.
It probably pisses her off a little… the fact that i ping her outta the blue with some visceral and emotionally triggering memory.
She also probably loves it a little…
I think I know that too… I think it’s sorta funny…
Still fucking around with her over things that are borderline not OK to fuck around with her about…
I know she thinks it’s sorta funny deep down too.
That’s part of why we fell so deeply in love.
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The humor behind it is why we know we need to be careful.
She knows she can’t get reeled in too far.
And I know I can’t reel her in too far.
The infinite dance between the masculine and feminine
We both know we need to be careful.
-Publius
letters from publius. 