Travel is jet fuel for the mind. It forces us to see the world differently. Sometimes, it holds up a mirror and reveals unflattering things.
About ourselves.
Particularly in the tortuous process of getting from Point A to Point B.
Bill Murray’s pre-marital advice is wise. Go on an around-the-world trip with the person you think you want to marry. Take her places that are really hard to get to. Spend a lot of time under duress. If you get back to JFK and still want to say I Do, get married in the airport.
I’m glad I married someone who’s patient, who can handle various hiccups and explosions of travel with charm. With ease. With aplomb. (While I usually cry. And drink. And rant and rant and rant.)
As I type this, we are waiting to board another plane to Sydney, two days later than we were supposed to leave. I’ve missed every Rotary event I signed up for. It’s almost like I’ve lost three days instead of one. But that’s just me being melodramatic.
I’m like that sometimes. (That MTM. Did I mention he’s a SAINT???)
But you’re reading this post on June 1.
I went to sleep in the murky hours of May 31, and I will (hopefully) alight from a plane at o’dark thirty the morning of June 2. Fifteen hours in the air flying west = crossing the international date line and losing a whole day.
Yes, I know I get it back on the return, but not really. Time in a tube is time in a tube is time in a tube.
But, I wonder: What would I do on a lost day if I could do anything I wanted? If I could slip through some crack in the Matrix and spend my airtime elsewhere?
I know exactly what I’d do, Dear Reader. But I want to hear about you. Please give me something to read when I get to my final destination, too jet lagged to sleep.
What would YOU do with those lost hours, if you could do anything?
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It’s MTM’s answer, so it may be yours. In case any of you say “Read Andra’s novel,” you can get your copy of To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis here:
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17 Comments
I am hopeful that if this ever happened to me that your new novel will have been written and I could read it. I would like to do that out by a body of water with Katy by my side and a gentle breeze blowing over us. I would like to have my feet propped up and have something cold and smooth to drink. I would sit there for as long as we both desired and live happily ever after.
I have been sitting here for a few minutes trying to think what I would do with time as you have described. I always come back to the same spot in my mind, which is I am currently doing exactly what I wish to do. My children have all been schooled and are now on their own, So after forty some years of their welfare, my duties are now directed to my agenda. Extra hours would be spent writing as all the hours are spent now. What else can I say? Maybe this will put you to sleep.
I suppose I’d do the things I do when I steal time for myself after my kids (ages 3 and 1) go to bed – write and quilt. I’d love to go to a trivia night again with my husband, too – one where I’d need a DD to get home after wonderful margaritas. What a neat post. Thanks!
I’d like to say I’d be doing something productive with it, but the reality would more likely be me catching up with the change in location.
We all think we would do something magical with an extra day. But the reality is most if us wouldn’t really do anything special. I enjoy my life as it is (mostly) so I would just have another day of that. Of course I would want it to be on the weekend in the summer so I could just enjoy a day of reading in the sun.
Binge on Netflix. 🙂
That is why I always have a new book or two on the iPad…. For waiting. Good luck with rest of the trip
with the people i love and i get the final vote )
I don’t honestly know. I’m not the best at planning ahead, so, guess I would just do whatever I wanted that day.
Sleep in, go out for breakfast, shop for flowers, get a message, plant said flowers, have a chocolate martini, go out to dinner, then lay on the couch in my jammies and watch a feel-good chick flick until my heavy eyes tell me it’s time to go to bed and end this free day.
Explore. I love to explore. New places, or new parts of familiar places, or evens the old parts of old familiar places that are like long held friends. So yes, I would explore.
Depends on where I was and who I was with. If I was in town where cool stadium was, I would catch a ballgame, or go to a museum. If it was on the coast, I’d hit a beach.
Sorry – but that is way too dependent on my mood as I slip into the matrix. Heck, I might spend the day seeing if I could extend my “lost time” indefinitely and still return to my starting point and age.
Bill Murray’s advice is perfect! And you two are resilient and used your time well, I’d say! 🙂 I hope that everything about this trip is now simply magical. ox
I believe I would spend it at the cabin with my children as that is such a peaceful place and at this very moment I’d like a little peace.
I’d find my way through the rest of the last book I started reading.
I’m not sure if you mean the cranky jet lagged time warp you’re in now or just pure, unadulterated time. In unadulterated time I would be spontaneous, and there is no end to what I might get up to. If stuck in an airplane, I would read until I couldn’t read any more, and then hopefully fall asleep.
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