The Travel Section fell out of the Saturday paper at my feet and I ignored it; it lay there for an inordinately long time like a cast-aside love letter and then I put it out with the other recycling. There was a time not so long ago that I saved it for last, idly flicking through it, stopping to pore over gorgeous scenes and descriptions of adventures. Adding and subtracting destinations from the bucket list in my head.
It dawned on me, by my callous disregard for the venerable escapism of "Great Getaways", somewhere along my well-travelled paths between Toronto, Florida, Calgary and Europe something in my psyche had shifted. On reflection, I think my soul has wearied of air travel; that, for the time being, the allure of every exotic destination will be weighed against the exhausting inconvenience and bullying meanness of airport security personnel.
I feel like I should be sad about this quasi decision; after all, there are an average of 102,000 flights daily. Can that many people be wrong? Maybe....Perhaps we were never meant to take flight. I read recently there were dinosaurs walking the Earth the size of a 737. Every time we taxi down a runway for takeoff using one more foot, one more second than I feel necessary before liftoff, I am convinced this is it. "We" are never going to get this lumbering behemoth into the air...and why did I ever believe them when any dimwitted landlubber can see it'll never work. Then the strip drifts away and I can taste relief like the best mint chocolate ever.
Instead of routinely handing over my credit card for another tortuous flight, for another so-so adventure, for a less-than-exotic all-inclusive experience (that is not all-inclusive, just saying). If I were to stay at home and, say, watch a documentary on Thailand or New Zealand or London I could do so without fear of an overhead bin disgorging its overweight, oversized contents onto my head. There would be no child kicking the back of my seat or rude man using all the armrests and half of my leg room. I could eat real food and not have to slog all my electronics and water and trail mix in a backpack when I go to the bathroom.
My world-weariness definitely is partly due to the distemper afflicting our American neighbours but they are not entirely to blame. The over-reaction to the 9/11 attacks in their mistaken belief that terrorism can be reined in by regulation has only succeeded in harassing everyday flying citizens into a misery bordering on the agony of watching paint dry while limping on a treadmill that speeds up and slows randomly.
In the U.S.' defence, I am probably my own worst enemy. I suffer with an affliction akin to the phobia of everything; except my difficulties arise in the form of being prepared for every contingency. Into a duffel designed to hold a week's worth of gear I am compelled to pile in protection from heat, cold, drought, sunburn, flood, boredom, sinusitis, power outages, starvation, blisters and the very real possibility that I will forget all my passwords. With all that margin of safety stowed I inevitably forget an essential like reading glasses or pyjamas.
In my time I have struggled across vast expanses of airport real estate with as many as four electronic devices strapped to my body. This is as insane as lugging a filing cabinet full of every photo I have ever taken, every document ever written by me and every book I have read or intend to. Those devices do not actually get heavier as we load them with books and games movies; it just feels that way.
I could be wrong about my intentions to stay put. I will probably be coaxed back into the air by husband or friends or the allure of warm climes during a cold winter. Or maybe I will truly be grounded; I will tackle the myriad projects on the back burners; I will explore and enjoy the Canada around me; I will partake of the international flavours that others have brought to us in our larger cities.
Either way, I am glad I did every trip. And that I made it back home safely. If nothing else extensive travel has made me appreciate my own bed. My own home. My own country.
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