This is The Story We Will Tell

The fireworks greeted the Indonesian new year sky like a thousand stars being born at once. I stood mesmerised on a third story wooden patio that teetered on stilts carelessly stuck in the sand below. The Balinese air clung to my skin like a good memory, bathing me in salt and incense. Below me, children built castles in the sand that sparkled with each explosion. Behind me, 90 adults from every corner of the northern hemisphere drank their new years away. I was the median between two different worlds. A conflux of realities crashing into one another. I stood breathing in the harmony of the night. I understood just where my heart was leading me. I grabbed the hand of a friend “ Let's go play!” I shouted over the bassy club music. Ben’s face lit up blue and gold reflecting the night sky. We ran like children down the salt rotted wooden steps and jumped into a new reality. I kicked my slaughtered sandals to the wind and let my feet marinade in the white sand. The beach echoed with laughter, fireworks, the ocean’s roar and the dancers overhead. “Blee! my Brother!” A man with leather skin named Wayan held out a hand and a bright smile. “Happy New Year!!” He grabbed our wrists and introduced us to his family. A Mother, Father, two small sisters clinging to opposite sides of their mother. That's when the fireworks were replaced with an embroilment between thunder and lightning. The sky opened up and emptied herself with a monstrous alleviating cleanse of the year past.
Darkness. The darkness swept through the island purging it of what once was. Above me, I heard the groans of party goers whose strobe light dance frenzy was put on hold. In front of me I saw the faces of the locals, tobacco teeth glowing with every strike of nature that lit up the island sky. These were the faces of love, and warmth. Faces of humans who would give their last cigarette, their shoes and the shirt off their back to friend in need. It was at that moment I realized I was a friend of these people, And they were friends of mine. I felt free of all the transgressions I once had. I felt the freshness of life. Acceptance flooded my veins as the rain washed my body clean. I linked my fingers with my new friends looked to the sky and said to Ben: “This is the story we will tell when they ask us what happened over aged bottles of wine. We will tell them about soaking up and bringing in the new year with a family of strangers, we will tell them we never felt more at home.”