Addicted (LAX/Houston)

(Written at United Club at LAX,  intended to be posted from Houston… but I forgot cause I was enjoying the airport)

Recently, I spent 18 consecutive days in one city.

Sounds unremarkable, but for me it was exceptional. It was the first time in over a year I had spent more than ten consecutive days in a single city.

I am a traveler.

And I am addicted to this life.

Very little makes me happier sitting, with an hour to spare, at the airport, waiting for a journey to begin.

As I drove into LAX this morning, happy as could be, if not euphoric, about the day ahead, with two airplanes, three airports and three time zones, I tried to figure out the appeal because it’s obviously the airplane food.

Part of it is the complete forced disconnect, no phone, no email, no way of getting in touch, which I regret will be going away with the prevalence of wifi on planes. I know arguably one could do this at any time, by just turning off the phone, but the difference is, when flying, it is entirely socially and corporately acceptable. It is the “get out of jail free” card for the business world, explaining away why you did not reply to that email promptly and within four hours.  (And by the way, did you notice that the world did in fact continue to turn without my instant reply?)

But for me I think the travel appeal, actually, just the airport appeal, it is far deeper than that. When I was young, my mother and father, divorced more than a decade, lived about a hundred miles apart. I would take a bus between the two. At some point way back then, at all of perhaps 13, I pondered, “Where am I really me?” 

It is an exceptionally deep question for a child (and truth be known one I continue to ask). I was aware that my mother’s house, my mother’s rules, my mother’s way crafted my thoughts, actions, and feelings while I was there. Approaching my father’s, a metamorphosis would occur and my thoughts, actions and feelings would morph to the requirements of my new location, my new company and their expectations.

As a child, I wondered, if I was really me in either location.

And, as a young teen, I decided, in the two hours between locations, I was perhaps only really myself, during precisely those two hours, outside of the crafting contextual hands of either location.

Now, happy as a clam, sitting at LAX, I can’t help but wonder if that very same notion is what appeals to me about travel. Travelling frees me. Not free as in, I can go anywhere, but free as in released from expectations. This is liberating not just because it means I don’t have to answer my emails, but because it also means I don’t have to think any particular way.

Follow me for a moment down a tangent. When I proof read, I often change the font of what I am working on so that I literally see what was written differently. It sounds ridiculous, but try it and you will be sold. It is amazing how much the font can change what you “see” in the same written words.

I feel traveling provides the exact same adjustment. It is not that I feel confined when I am in any one place. It is more that I find the slip into heuristic action, lulling, and dulling the thought behind actions.

Traveling activates my mind, like running and finding the high. In the new context, freed from the ephemeral location specific forces sculpting choices, default decisions made without thought day-to-day are suddenly questioned,  “but do I really like eggs for breakfast, given all the choices here…” and some decisions are dramatically simplified, after all, I only brought one pair of shoes.

There are the curiosities; the person over there, with the strange hat and accent, what brought them here? What did they see? How has it changed them?

It is the empty slate factor. Sure, I have this ticket for Houston, but I am here. I could fly to ….

Which leads to, where would I want to fly to?

Which leads to dreams, and hopes and aspirations.

I know for a lot of people, the fact that spending an obligatory hour waiting at the airport gives me time in which I am spurred to think differently and that this is something l get high on, seems crazy.

I guess I can’t explain it and really, what addict can really explain their appetite or experience within their addiction.

But, here, at the airport, in between places, at the beginning of a journey, with a child’s volume of hope and excitement for the days ahead, here is where I feel most at home, most free and most alive.

Cool: The pleasure of my addiction

Stupid: Like all addictions, the distance it pushes between my friends and family.