Ubud, We <3 You & The Messy Middle

Hi from rainy Hoi An, Vietnam. We’ve been following the sun, and we were due to hit some clouds. We are embracing inside time, including crafts, badminton, acrobatics class, and chess club. Lou loves to go outside and make umbrella forts.

If it has been a minute since we caught up, give me a quick reply with an update from your world and/or any reaction to the post.

We’re entering month 6 of our 13-month travels. We just wrapped two months in Bali, with the last six weeks in Ubud being the highlight of our whole trip. 

The school we found in Ubud shaped our entire experience, The Wood School.

The first couple sentences of their mission statement held up.

“At Wood School Bali, our goal is to cultivate good humans who will make a positive impact on the world. We prioritize teaching values first, nurturing students' moral character, respect, and sense of responsibility.”

The school culture put an expectation on the kids that they could and should do real-life tasks to feel a responsibility to each other and the school. This expectation made it fun for them. This included cooking, gardening, cleaning up after themselves, foraging, feeding the school buffalo the compost, bricklaying (yes, bricklaying), and so much more. The kids loved it all!

At the same time, they were encouraged to be kids – to roam free, play, and get dirty. 

They had daily routines around gratefulness, yoga, meditation, and music. It took the kids a few days of thinking it was ‘weird’ before being fully on board. All the kids and parents were bought in, creating a community that felt like we were in on a secret. This shared experience among the parents created a strong sense of overlap and connection. It opened up threads to go deeper than you usually would with school parents around their stories, cultures, and parenting philosophies. Parents quickly became friends.

More traditional learning was not ignored, but it had real-life context and application. These lessons were thoughtful and project-based, like buying groceries at the local market to follow recipes or using numbers/letters to learn coordinates on a map of Bali.

While there were separate age-grouped classes, a good chunk of the time included peer-to-peer interaction and kid self-regulation. The default was to let the kids figure it out before any teacher looked to rush in. Rowe was the youngest at the school and loved chasing the older kids. We would often see him being pushy and the older kids would be patient and educate him on that not being the way to handle things. It was fun to sit back and watch.

Our default response to every class update we received became, “That is so cool!”.

The school enabled Tye and me to have the space to slow down, have our own time, and lean into the pick-your-own adventure canvas Ubud creates.

For me, a typical day felt so full yet refreshingly simple.

• Drop kids off at school. Tye and I would alternate or have the village driver take them. His name was Edy, and we had complete trust in him.

• Take a scooter ride to a neighborhood Warung (cafe/restaurant). I didn’t venture too far with the scooter. Tye was Mad Max all over Ubud.

• Get a few hours of computer time while having an incredible $5 meal consisting of a latte or two, juice, and breakfast.

• Scooter or take a Grab (Uber for scooters) to a workout or go play padel. I became tight with the padel community. Each person in the community had their own cultural perspectives and unique story about how they arrived at Ubud.

• Pick up the kids or meet Tye back at the house after she picked them up. A pickup usually lasted an hour because kids were happily running all over the school's open green space while the parents caught up or introduced themselves to each other.

• Jump into the pool with the kids. We lucked out with a large pool overlooking coconut trees and rice fields. It was always fun swimming when it rained hard.

• Pick up a delicious chicken-type dinner at local Warung for $5-$15 or have Grab/Gojek (their Uber eats) deliver it.

• Do our best to find a family movie or documentary to watch after dinner. Our favorite movie night was watching The Biggest Little Farm. It is so hard to find non-crap to watch, so please send us your favorites!

• Explain to Lou what we read the night before. Then, try to get in a chapter of Harry Potter before eyes closed from an exhausting day. We were asleep by 8pm.

Tye’s day was similar, though she loved exploring the local markets and riding all over Ubud, whereas I liked my peripheral routine.

Despite the average Balinese person making only ~$350/month, they are kind, happy, and trusting. They love kids with a tight family and community unit, usually living in a multigenerational compound. Their religion guides them (Hinduism with a strong emphasis on karma). When engaging with the people throughout the day, you feel a sense of warmth and gratefulness versus resentment — especially when you give the little extra that has a real impact on them (talking a few dollars).

A day in Ubud was hard to beat. You understand why folks move there.

*Some real caveats. We lucked out with an Airbnb within our means with a fantastic location, layout, pool, owner, and staff. We went during the slow season, so traffic was bad, but not horrible. We had good weather almost the entire time where it was hot, but not that hot. Tye and I eased into the scooter world at our own pace and comfort levels. We weren’t working, so the time zone was not an issue. Nobody got sick or injured, and we encountered no serious mother nature issues.

Now, onto the four themes Tye and I identified as the most important going into the trip.

Theme 1: Create compassionate and resilient kids.  Raise capable, good humans.

In the last post, I talked about reframing this theme to allow air for other core qualities we want to instill in the kids. The trip has already underscored respectful, confident communication as an essential tool.

The next one feels obvious, but highlighted during our time in Ubud.

Lou’s class did something powerful, and I’m sure it happens in many classrooms and homes, but it was the first time we were exposed to the exercise. Her class created a Kindness Jar. Classmates and parents were encouraged to send their teacher, Mr. Jak, a note for any act of kindness.

We of course talk to Lou about the importance of being kind, but being in Bali, in this environment, with her being the new student, and later seeing new students come in, it felt especially timely.

It sparked meaningful conversations about how good she felt when a classmate was kind to her as the new kid. She realized she could create that same feeling for others. On a few other occasions since then, she has looked for the kid who is alone or may look unhappy — to push past shyness or fear to say hi or ask them to play. In doing so, also building more confidence in her voice.

On the other spectrum of this theme, too often than I like to admit, I feel like our kids’ paradigms are so distorted from the realities of the rest of the world. In not the best way.

Bali reminds you of this daily. Local kids seemed so happy with almost nothing. The most vivid example is this scrap yard we would pass on one of the main roads with two young kids who lived there. Whenever it rained, a discarded bathtub in the front would fill up, and the two kids would play in it in a way that you would think they were at Disneyland.

Fast forward an hour later, and our kids are at dinner complaining (or throwing a fit) because they can’t have their second juice of the day 🤦🏻.

This is a big topic for Tye and I. We love seeing the kids happy and want to give them everything in the world, but we likely need to take away more for them to truly appreciate what they have. We must accept that doing so will likely make things harder for us in those moments. We need to accept short-term annoyance for the long-term gains we’re after.

So I would give us a solid A- / B+ on this theme. It’s what we think about the most and we have so much pride in how the kids are developing.

Theme 2: Be our best selves with each other.

For Tye’s birthday last year, I found a sabbatical coach that sounded interesting. I figured it was a different and relevant gift, and we would do one fun joint session and that would be it.

It turned out the woman (Lyndall) was so great and her system/style produced the space for Tye and I to go deeper than we could ourselves. While the upcoming sabbatical wrapped the sessions, the content was relevant to all aspects of life, with or without a sabbatical.
Lyndall is the reason we developed the four themes to have intention around.

So we thought doing a pulse check with her during the trip would be good.

Tye and I had similar updates. The gist being…

“We’re having an amazing experience. It’s been hard at times but way more rewarding. It’s what we were after. We feel good about the themes. But we’re starting to question what is next when the trip ends.”

Lyndall was nodding with a grin throughout our updates. When we finished, she shared her screen and showed us this ‘Messy Middle’ slide.

I guess our feeling is common and our arc is nothing novel. Though we still have over half our trip left, Tye and I feel the tangled middle. We naturally want to talk to each other about ways to unravel it, but we have no clear answer on the best way.

Lyndall’s advice was to just sit with it. And that’s what we’re doing.

I bring it up in this theme because the tangled lines are big. As Tye and I figure it out, writing this out is a reminder to control the conditions around how we unravel it together vs. the emotion that may come from us seeing different paths in ways to untangle.

Theme 3: Lean into family adventures (the good, the bad, and the boring).

Each day in Bali felt like a mini adventure. When you’re scootering in the jungle with the occasional monkey sighting or torrential downpour, you’re not just going through the motions.

We had a few big adventures, too.

The most memorable was a weekend trip to Lovina, 2.5 hours north of Ubud. We visited a Children’s Home that the Wood School supports and partners with. We met two of the most remarkable people who care for and show love to close to 40 kids. They have no government support, so they largely rely on their own farming and sustainability efforts, which they demonstrated for us. The kids are happy, warm, and our group felt so welcomed.

We trust that some of the day’s purpose seeped through to our kids. It initiated dialogue and hopefully added a brick to their foundation.

A moment I will never forget was when we first arrived. All teachers, parents, and kids participated in a Kirtan practice, chanting “Baba Nam Kevalam," meaning "Love is all there is." This was not new to Lou and Rowe, as they did this each Monday to start the week. Rowe sat next to me and guided me through it. 4-year-old son was leading Dad in a gratefulness chant :).

We decided to stay in Lovina for the weekend with a lovely Dutch family from school we became friends with. Lovina is famous for the opportunity to watch and swim with the dolphins. We went early in the morning and saw loads of them. We could also hold onto the boat and watch them underwater, which was tough for the kids but very cool for the adults. Though the dolphins were the main attraction, we had good snorkeling at a reef not too far offshore. It was better snorkeling than we had in Greece and Croatia.

For me, the weekend’s highlight was the afternoon. Rowe and I went out with a couple of locals and fished using just lines and hooks. When you felt a bite, you had the pull up 40 meters of line. It was overcast from a neighboring volcano with almost no other boats on the ocean. It was eerily awesome.

Theme 4: Seek out personal exploration and professional curiosity.

Having the kids in a school we loved allowed for guilt-free personal time. It was so nice. It made it even clearer how a school or camp needs to be paramount for the remaining destination decisions.

I think about this open time as a balance between experiencing new activities and keeping up with how fast tech is moving to avoid feeling left behind. I expect and am excited for the latter to accelerate in the later months of the trip. For now, it’s skewed towards new activities.

Padel became almost an addiction in Ubud. I have such an advantage with a tennis foundation, but I would get smoked by people who have been playing for a while and knew what they were doing. The court feels much more open than pickleball, making it more dynamic and much more of a workout. It’s exciting to feel this way about a new sport and see the path to improving.

The other activity taking up cycles was exploring the trend around animal flow workouts. As someone with lingering back pain, I’ve tried it all and know I need a combo of three things to feel my best — strength building, active stretching, and inverse bending to counter sitting at a desk all day. So, this workout just made sense to me as it seemed to capture all three.
After a month, I think I’m a believer. I feel awesome. After trying many workouts and instructors, I found my go-to follow (LeoMoves). Anyway, it may be interesting to some.

Ok, so the last time I wrapped with a Lou bathroom joke so let’s give Rowe the mic.

Whenever Rowe goes #2, he holds his nose. He’s been doing this since I can remember. In Ubud, our bathroom was outside, but he would still plug his nose.

Finally, I just said, “Hey bud, we’re outside. You don’t need to grab your nose.”
Without skipping a beat, he yelled, as if on the top of a mountain, “My poop is stronger than the wind!”
I had no comeback.

Miss everybody.
Scott