I’ve been doing a bit of jetting about lately, and not the most fun kind, where you suffer through the trials of coach because you’re going to spend the next two weeks – three months traveling elsewhere. Nope, this is the stuff where you’re wedged into a seat that is too small for the average American, rattled around like a dice in a Yahtzee cup, and spit out into a strange airport, only to do the same thing in reverse 48-72 hours later.<\/p>\n
I’m left feeling dizzy, hungry for fresh produce, and wondering where the hell I am after this kind of travel, jittery with exhaustion and disorientation. I loved the idea behind my recent junket to NYC, but the reality was a lot more jarring. And when I shuffled off to the shower at 4:07 this morning, I was none too psyched to be off on another short trip – this one to a writer’s conference. I’m in the process of confirming another four day excursion, also tightly scheduled, a mere two weeks from now and as much as I am thrilled to be heading south of the border, down Mexico way, this is another non-vacation event, where I’ll need to be dressed in a clean shirt and have my networking hat on.<\/p>\n
Typically, when I write about travelers, I focus on the free spirited wanderers, my fellow graduates in the school of the road, acolytes of beat poets and Buddhist ascetics. But lately, it seems my solidarity is with the road warriors, those schlepping cases of samples off to Salt Lake City, people in suits or branded polo shirts carrying folders of papers with corporate logos on them. They stride through the terminals, cell phones glued to one ear, dragging a regulation sized carry-on topped with a laptop bag and whoosh, off they go.<\/p>\n
On the plane they’re editing Excel spreadsheets, punching tiny emails into Blackberries, reading Important Financial News, or talking intensely with the sales rep from region 9 who they bumped into on the stopover in Minneapolis. They’re in a state of eternal transit, calling back to the office the moment the airplane’s wheels touch the tarmac saying, “Hey, can you reschedule my three o’clock, my connection to Newark is delayed.”<\/p>\n
I don’t know if they exist in some timeless space where sleep is optional and the landscape consists of office parks and chain restaurants. I find it extremely disconcerting to wing across thousands of miles to scenery that looks just like what I left behind – parking lots and Starbucks vast swaths of asphalts covered with cars that differ only in their license plates from those I left behind in the dark hours of the morning. If I’m going to tackle the monsters of transit, at least I want to end up some place visibly different. At the very least.<\/p>\n
The business nomads seem confident and relaxed, maintaining a neatly pressed look to their silk blouses, calmly taking off their practical pumps in security, standing in stockings while handing over their boarding passes yet again. I admire their fortitude and wonder if they haven’t found a way to apply some kind of mental blinders to the physical and mental turmoil of transit, of unnaturally hauling your body from A to B by sheer force of internal combustion and will.<\/p>\n
I never want to loose my sense of stunned fascination at finding myself in the afternoon three – or ten – time zones away from where I woke up in the morning. I wonder if regular business travelers become cavalier about it, if I will become cavalier about it, trading my keen sense of observation in for an ease with changing surroundings. I envy those who travel painlessly, who never get seasick, who fall asleep on airplanes as though they were natural places for humans to nap.<\/p>\n
I suppose the price I pay for the intensity of feeling I bring to my travels is the toll that transit takes on my psyche. Usually, I think it’s worth it. Today, as I look across four lanes of traffic at a shopping mall that looks just like the one we pass on the way to the airport by my house, I’m not so sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been doing a bit of jetting about lately, and not the most fun kind, where you suffer through the trials of coach because you’re going to spend the next two weeks – three months traveling elsewhere. Nope, this is the stuff where you’re wedged into a seat that is too small for the average … <\/p>\n