Here and There

"I ain't gettin' on no time machine."
--Marvin Barnes

I don't know if Barnes, a player for the ABA St. Louis Spirits, really balked when asked to board a flight that departed Louisville at 8 a.m. and arrived in St. Louis at 7:59 a.m., thanks to time zones, but I choose to believe he did. That story is just too funny, and really, the sentiment is just too true.

While the actual air travel grows ever more tedious, from the "security" routines to the Greyhound-in-the-sky conditions of the jam-packed planes, there's still something a little magic about going so far so fast, a reason to marvel at having breakfast near the Mississippi and lunch with a view of the Puget Sound.


Those first happily disorienting hours in a new place always make me want to rush back to the airport and buy tickets to everywhere; the world is small, I'm reminded, and there for the taking. Being so far out of my normal habits already, time and money and all the obligations of life seem like no barriers at all. Let's go!

Funny, though, how quickly the novel is converted into routine, at least for my Taurus brain. By the next day, navigating an unfamiliar downtown seems second nature, eating every meal in a new restaurant is just what we do, and if a room near the top of a graciously restored old hotel isn't exactly home, it certainly is comfortable. Not only could I get used to this, I already am.

Of course, it's only that easy because I'm in touch with my family often enough that they don't seem so far away. I can tell that my daughter, who dreaded my departure, is not just being brave when she tells me, "I'm doing good," and I'm glad for both our sakes. Knowing that everything will be okay, it's easy to enjoy myself, but the tears that leap to my eyes once I spot her in the airport concourse show where my heart was the entire time.

The next morning, the extra hugs I receive prove that I've been gone as much as the clothes and souvenirs and conference materials that spill out of my half-emptied suitcase, but except for that hard evidence it feels like any other lazy Saturday at the end of any other normal week, with plans no more ambitious than to read the paper and go to the park and catch up on life. It's nothing if not routine, but for the moment I don't care what's going on in the rest of the world or what plane ticket I could buy.

Too bad, then, that it's really Sunday, with a busy Monday looming ahead and no more days off in sight. Maybe another time machine ride would be just the ticket after all.