Intermodal

I’m back in the season of traveling for work, distilling my life to what can fit in my suitcase/the overhead bin or the under the seat in front of me. Everything is on wheels; everything is modal. Everything is reimbursable, as if it never actually happened. I wake in a room that looks essentially the same as the last and look out at a cityscape eerily similar to the one the week before. The skies and walls and floors and counters are unoffending shades of brown or gray. I drink a lot of bottled water. The water needs to be uniform and modal too. I speak in short, direct sentences with immigrants from countries I can’t spell about trivial things, like table placements or just how many cookies need to be displayed. I don’t get to laugh much. I long for depth, for familiarity, for home cooking, for sinks that aren’t sensor activated.  Then I get home and I’m simply tired. 

Most of the time, I like the travel. It’s harder now having a dog (all you moms out there just rolled your eyes, but it really is. The dog is my kid and I unhealthily project all of my hormonal neediness onto her) but I need the feeling of movement, of some little microburst of new beginning.  I sleep better on planes than I do in some beds, the newest issue of Vanity Fair cuddled against my chest, my head resting on the window shade covering Ohio or Nebraska or Colorado or Alberta 30,000 feet below. 

In the midst of my travel I got news that a person who was in my immediate family has cancer. The news always looks bad at the onset. With the prognosis flared the latent emotions that family brings. Pain. Guilt. Anger. Love. Fear. There the bests and the worsts crashing together, two cymbals resonating in that relational crescendo again and again and again, narrating that flip book of stills from 15+ years. 

I have another ridiculous month of movement before July brings the summer quiet. I will want the quiet then.