21 August 2013
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Traveling by Air
Tuesday evening, I returned to Bangkok after a twelve-day trip to the United States to renew my Thai visa. This trip, like ever other trip I make by myself, always finds me a bit awash in melancholy. This time, the waves came while eating noodles in the lounge at Narita Airport in Tokyo.
I have been traveling by air since I was a month old. Over the years, I have come to associate air travel with so many things: adventure, family, friends, romance, and escape. On each trip, the moment comes when I feel like I am in transit, literally suspended between points in my life. The idea that I am part of a larger network, knowing friends and family around the globe, excites me. At the same time, I feel disconnected and not at home anywhere in particular.
It is an interesting sensation and one that, the more I experience it, the more inviting it becomes. Maybe there is a point where I cease to be grounded at all and am forever flitting about the globe.
Comments (13)
I crave the connections. They give me a sense of position in the universe. When my grandfather’s last sibling died he told me that he was alone in the world. Although my father and his sister and all of us grandkids were alive he didn’t count us since we were not “blood” relations. He was adrift and it was sad and terrifying to him. I had to assure him that blood or not he was my grandfather and he wasn’t going to weasel out of it! It did make him laugh.
@murisopsis -
My Mother was like that….Unless they were “blood kin” they didn’t exist….When my third Grandchild was born, I let my Mom and Dad know they were Great Grandparents again….A few months later, we went up to Washington, to visit with them and my Mom asked me, “how can he be my Great Grandson, when he’s not even related to me?” I looked her right in the eye and said, “because he’s my Grandson!” All she could say was oh….
Ah you are ready for living in space!! There is a sensation of freedom when I look out the windows of the plane.
I think it’s exciting that you have been blessed to be able to experience different cultures, and travel to varied lands, meeting new people along the way.
You are right though. NRT is a pretty lonely airport. I get that feeling there sometimes too.
Freedom flights, soaring peacefully above the clouds, can make for a wonderful sensation that there’s nobody else around but myself and the sky.
Friends in every continent , yes this forms a large net , so large than it is hard to embrace .
The same is about time that flows . How many friends known at differents moments of my life, are lost now in the mist of the past
In friendship
Michel
You are so blessed to have such a wonderful family and tons of friends throughout the entire planet it seems. People who know you, definitely are privileged to call you as their friend.
This is the effects of globalisation.
I like this post
You’ve captured that melancholy feeling pretty well. Airports and airplanes are really rare places for me to be, but I do get a sense of what you mean by that “in transit” feeling. Nice one.
i see myself that way sometimes. that i don’t belonged to a single location. ever. i love going places, meeting people, and experiencing new things. but i’m not that big of a fan on getting a sore flat ass from hours of sitting idle. and i never liked airplane/airport food. i read somewhere that the dislike for food at airports and airplanes is due to ‘noise’ that reduces our ability to enjoy food. is there a truth to that you think?
@rudyhou - I don’t know about the noise reducing our ability to enjoy food but the extremely low humidity at high altitudes results in food tasting much blander.
@stepaside_loser - Glad you found the description compelling. Perhaps because I have traveled so much in my life, but often the only time I feel fully at home is when I’m in the process of traveling somewhere else.
@icepearlz - It truly is about globalization, isn’t it? Reminds me of the book, “The Global Soul” by Pico Iyer. In it, he writes “The unhappiest people I know these days are often the ones in motion, encouraged to search for a utopia outside themselves.” I actually find my experience to be quite the opposite: this being in motion forces me to find a utopia inside myself.
@ZSA_MD - So nice of you to write those words. I really feel privileged to know so many people in so many places and count that among the blessings in my life.
@fauquet - I used to worry a great deal about losing friends because of time and distance. A dear Singaporean friend whom I first met twenty years ago told me not to worry, that friendships endure and we re-enter others’ lives at just the right time. After about five years of being out of touch with each other, we reconnected shortly after I moved to Bangkok and have remained very close ever since.
@armnatmom - Poetically described!
@LostSock21 - I always feel a bit like Bill Murray. LOL
@Crystalinne - Indeed, it truly is a blessing and the feeling of being caught in between these places is a small price to pay.
@Fatcat723 - Maybe living in space would be a step too removed for my tastes!
@murisopsis - @ellie1945 - Now, that is fascinating! I would think that grandparents would still feel the sense of a blood connection because there is still a genetic link.
@christao408 - is that so? hmm.. i learn new things every day