Do you get a sense of the exact moment when things veer into the bizarre? No? Take September 9, sunset at Old Man's beach in Bali.
Surfers, stray dogs, boiled corn with sweet chilli sauce, the usual. I am sitting on a black and gritty rock, learning my ten-words-a-day. Some Australian mothers are playing with their sandy toddlers, throwing balls, flip-flops and encouraging whoops. You get the idea.
A whoosh beyond my left shoulder. I even see the bride - in a merengue dress (95% polyester, 5% salt), shuffling in a man's black shoes towards the water - and go back to the word 'first' which is giving me some trouble at the moment.
Eh-what? Bride? Double-take -she's still there, now joined by an angular groom in black, and a photographer holding his camera on a stick above his head, filming everything they do. And they do this: the man kneels in the surf, and buries his head in the merengue; then he presumably runs out of breath and lifts his face, looking purple, looking stunned. He recites some words to his beloved. She appears impassive but at least she's taken off the black shoes. He gets up and they embrace; a functional, solid embrace you might have filed in your heads as an after-dinner display reserved to stocky elderly relatives.
Then it gets wildly romantic. The groom kisses the bride. On the lips and the Aussie mothers scream in support and teach the toddlers to clap. Strengthened by this display, he looks at the sky - now going suitably pink as the sun leaks into the horizon - and shouts 'I love you'. Shouts 'I love you' in a few languages. Adds, in English, 'very much'. I love you very much.
A few horses canter by, ridden by slim people with helmets. Some children watch the wedding from a shallow pool in the sea. With their bodies submerged, they look like three smiling heads lined up on a murky mirror. The world has turned purple. It's perfect.
And why not start your married life like this? Alone and deliriously happy, at sunset, on a beach in Bali? As you know, they'll have enough talks about electricity bills and lost socks, who's taking Jamie to nursery today and don't drop your good trousers on the floor...
And then they do something that hurls the spectators (me) from their Jane Austin reverie back to the tat and twitter of the age. They take a million pictures of themselves, by the sea, in their wedding nylons, in Bali. They take selfies, they take portraits, arty, posed, smiling, serious, bespectacled, sitting, kneeling, up, down, together, apart and again.
The sun dips beyond the horizon. I can't see the Bahasa word for 'first' any longer. 'Pertama', perhaps? Moona and Kiwi come running back from the sea.
'What have we missed?'
Surfers, stray dogs, boiled corn with sweet chilli sauce, the usual. I am sitting on a black and gritty rock, learning my ten-words-a-day. Some Australian mothers are playing with their sandy toddlers, throwing balls, flip-flops and encouraging whoops. You get the idea.
A whoosh beyond my left shoulder. I even see the bride - in a merengue dress (95% polyester, 5% salt), shuffling in a man's black shoes towards the water - and go back to the word 'first' which is giving me some trouble at the moment.
Eh-what? Bride? Double-take -she's still there, now joined by an angular groom in black, and a photographer holding his camera on a stick above his head, filming everything they do. And they do this: the man kneels in the surf, and buries his head in the merengue; then he presumably runs out of breath and lifts his face, looking purple, looking stunned. He recites some words to his beloved. She appears impassive but at least she's taken off the black shoes. He gets up and they embrace; a functional, solid embrace you might have filed in your heads as an after-dinner display reserved to stocky elderly relatives.
Then it gets wildly romantic. The groom kisses the bride. On the lips and the Aussie mothers scream in support and teach the toddlers to clap. Strengthened by this display, he looks at the sky - now going suitably pink as the sun leaks into the horizon - and shouts 'I love you'. Shouts 'I love you' in a few languages. Adds, in English, 'very much'. I love you very much.
A few horses canter by, ridden by slim people with helmets. Some children watch the wedding from a shallow pool in the sea. With their bodies submerged, they look like three smiling heads lined up on a murky mirror. The world has turned purple. It's perfect.
And why not start your married life like this? Alone and deliriously happy, at sunset, on a beach in Bali? As you know, they'll have enough talks about electricity bills and lost socks, who's taking Jamie to nursery today and don't drop your good trousers on the floor...
And then they do something that hurls the spectators (me) from their Jane Austin reverie back to the tat and twitter of the age. They take a million pictures of themselves, by the sea, in their wedding nylons, in Bali. They take selfies, they take portraits, arty, posed, smiling, serious, bespectacled, sitting, kneeling, up, down, together, apart and again.
The sun dips beyond the horizon. I can't see the Bahasa word for 'first' any longer. 'Pertama', perhaps? Moona and Kiwi come running back from the sea.
'What have we missed?'
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