The hike you’re supposed to do in Bali is Mount Batur. Specifically, a sunrise hike of the active volcano which requires leaving Ubud at 2:30 AM and not getting back for at least eight hours. All the guided tours of Mount Batur required that kind of time commitment which was just not doable given our return flights to Honolulu the next day. Add to that, Cecilia had already been a latchkey kid for over a month, missing her mama and homesick, so I had to find a faster, easier alternative for my Bali trek. 

Campuhan Ridge Walk it was.  

I pinged a bike-driver on the GoJek app to pick me up in the dark so I could trek Campuhan before sunrise. I’d read that the mostly paved walk had very little cover so once the sun is up, it gets hot fast. An early morning walk seemed best. Cecilia might still be asleep and not miss me so much.  

I held onto the back of the bike as we zoomed through the streets chanting my little mantra, “you’re her only parent, you must stay alive” that accompanied me anytime I was on the back of a motorcycle that summer. Riding those bikes always seemed like the most dangerous thing I’d ever done in my life. Much, much scarier than any mountain climbing or plant ceremony or even glider ride I’d taken in the last three years since Clayton’s transition. Those bikes always felt like a direct conversation with death. Fast, frenetic and out of my hands. 

I was relieved to find the ridge walk wasn’t crawling with tourists. It’s such an easy hike, so close to central Ubud and requiring no exertion, that everyone and their mother (including me) uses the path for their morning walks, jogs, to wear out those early-rising toddlers. 

The weather was perfect that morning, no rain, and I was grateful for even an hour to walk among the overgrown trees, rice paddies and little stores that lined the walk. The day before, I’d had a private session with a local healer and my mind was replaying his advice.

I’d had to request a session with him three times before he agreed to meet. I don’t know if that was a scheduling issue or a test of my resolve, but finally, I’d been allowed to visit with him at his family’s compound not too far from the Yoga Barn where it became quickly clear that tourists were not his usual patients. All the kids in his family peeked around corners or poked their heads out of windows to get a look at me.  

I joined him in a raised pavilion where he was smoking and smiling and ready to begin. We bowed to one another then he pulled out a piece of paper with a stick drawing of a human pre-printed on the page.  We took a moment to breathe and meditate together, then he began to scribble on the paper, criss-crossing the stick body from toe to head until he ran out of paper. 

And then, he said this:

“Your head is full of thoughts and your stomach is full of gas. You have pains in your lower back because your energy is blocked from your root chakra to your crown. It is blocked by the grief in your heart. You must release your husband in order for him to be reincarnated. Your daughter is very sensitive and she can feel you holding on to him. It keeps her sad too.”

(I had not mentioned to him that I was a widow, by the way.) 

“You are a business owner but your business has been down for several years. It will come back and it will keep growing. Step by step.”

(I had closed down the businesses co-owned by Clayton and I and just recently relaunched my corporation in Hawai’i.)

“You are holding too much. You have to learn how to release things. You should be studying yoga and meditation, breath work is very important for you. You do not enjoy life. You must enjoy breathing. You must choose to be happy and release the old connections. If you are unhappy, your husband will stay to make sure you are okay.”

(In other words, loosen up and have some fun. Or as Clayton used to say to me, “Just relax and breathe, Susan.”)

“Everything doesn’t have to be work. You don’t need lots of time to heal yourself. A few minutes of breathing each day. Happiness is meant for you. You are a healer who can heal yourself. You have everything you need with your breath, yoga, meditation, your daughter, your business. That is all you need to move forward.”

I’d never considered that my sadness, my grief, could be holding Clayton back from fulfilling more aspects of his destiny, keeping him grounded when he was meant to fly. It wasn’t something I wanted to hear but it was something I needed to hear, a wholly different perspective on death than my pseudo-spiritual hippie version. 

I’d taken great comfort in feeling Clayton’s spirit traveling with me. I joked that we were still married, just an “open” marriage now. I still asked him for parenting advice, cried with him when I felt overwhelmed, talked to him in the car after dropping Cecilia at school every morning. 

It had (selfishly) never once crossed my mind that maybe Clayton had a purpose beyond our marriage, his role as a father, a son. That I could, in fact, be clinging to him, using him as a life-raft in life’s bubbling seas, when he was tasked to begin a whole new life, to level up, to reincarnate. 

Here I was, thinking I was the only one starting over. 

Well, shit.