in wake of the waves

the tsunami that hit the western shores of indonesia in late december washed up broken boats and palm fronds, broken hearts and foggy memories. those of us that spent our childhood wandering sumatran jungles found ourselves filtering through our years for moments of pure equatorial innocence. we need to hold onto these memories once again, for without them, the images of upturned lands and faithless faces that we see every day on Page One would engrain themselves in our minds.



we used to make necklaces out of peel-off 7-Up lids. soda was a luxury in indonesia and cans were nowhere near being childproof. my parents' generation had learned from their mistakes when it came to aluminum, and my mom insisted on opening my first one for me. after slowly peeling the triangle lip away, she bent the soft metal in half and gently squeezed it through the opening. "don't. ever. do. this." she turned the can upside down, and 7-Up splashed my feet. when the lid landed between her shoes and mine, she brought her face down to me and smiled. "that could have been in your stomach."

so, being forewarned of the dangers of sharp, jagged metal, my friends and i thought it genius to wrap chains of these lids around our sunburned wrists. we were regular ten-year-old masterminds and The Pool, rumbai, sumatra was our hq.

The Pool stretched a never-ending 25 yards across a cracking cement deck, and the jungled picnic area next to it was our playground, one into which no adult evil could penetrate. its exotic branches canopied the soda sippers below and served as our catwalk while we straddled the soft bark and shimmied from tree to tree. we laughed, we lived miles above everyone else. sometimes, indonesia itself seemed designed solely for the perfect innocence of children.

the green melted into blue where the leaves crept up to The Pool gutter. they would have gladly gone for a swim if they'd been allowed. anyone would, really. i'd like to say that my memory focuses on a hot, sticky summer moment, but it could have been a hot, sticky fall day. or a winter one. or spring. that's the way it was 45 km from the equator. everyone was always at The Pool. everyone always drank cold 7-Ups.

and there we were: my little brother in his red speedo and matching dripping locks, two fellow expats, and me. lathered in bare-bottomed-girl sunscreen and sitting indian-style on the grass, we hid from the glaring sun's reflection. the parents were nowhere to be found, and in one of each of our hands was a sweating green can of carbonated heaven. michael's was almost done. i took pride in taking the longest to finish. we had all brought our metal chains, and with the delicacy of a jeweller, we each folded the new lid through the end link, secured the chain around a wrist, and turned our chins upward to the tempting branches.

seeing as the wilderness was beckoning us, one girl hatched the brilliant idea of stringing her proof of pop conquests around her bare neck, freeing up her hands. but the 3 o'clock bells across the street at our fathers' office began to ring and our necks jerked sideways at the prospect of pushing papas into The Pool's accepting waters. the necklace sliced through the skin of our darling friend's young neck, dripping deep red onto her pale pink bathing suit. our mothers reappeared from hiding, removing shreds of silver from their children and wrapping an old teeshirt around the imperfect neck of an unlucky little girl. there would be no more jungle adventures that day. no pushing dads in the pool. our picnics were packed in a snap and from that day forth, we would sip our soda from glass bottles.