Travel disconnects the senses
I’m back. At least, I think I am. Brazil is such a huge country, and so far away from the UK that travelling from the centre of Brazil feels like an expedition in itself. I started back on Saturday, at 3pm local time, and didn’t get back to Birmingham until 1pm on Monday. There was the 20 hour bus ride, the hours of waiting at Sao Paulo airport, the 11 hour flight followed by another 1 hour 40 minute flight, and finally the taxi ride home.
Perhaps it was mostly tiredness and jet-lag, but I found that my senses got disconnected from one another. Like a group of tired children, they straggled along, getting out of synchronisation with one another. When I woke on the bus, sound roared in suddenly like a window opened on raging surf before sight and touch worked out where I was. On the flight, I realised that I had been staring at the back of the seat in front of me for several minutes after waking, seeing it, but not being aware of sound, touch or smell, or of thinking consciously about anything.
Bits of me kept getting left behind. I felt wide awake on the last part of my flight, then an intense, irresistible sleepiness ambushed me suddenly as we landed. Part of the problem, I think, is that long distance travel is done using stolen time, and there’s eventually a price to pay for that petty crime. On the plane, it’s night, but if you lift the window blinds slightly, you see fierce, shocking sunlight piling up against the glass, trying to burst the little bubble of time created by inter-continental flight. It finds you in the end.
I enjoy taking off. I like the burning roar of the engines, feeling the hand of acceleration pushing you firmly in the chest, pinning you to your seat. I like the sudden, gentle lurch as the wheels leave the ground, when you are falling and being lifted at the same time.
But it’s all disconnection, and I’m glad to be back with familiarity, slowly synchronising my senses again and re-setting my clock. I seem to be more or less all here.
1
Welcome home - I trust you brought back no stray cats
by Jonathan Briggs @ 18/09/2007 10:14 pm • Permalink •
2
Yes, welcome home. I have a friend who's finishing a postdoc in Tanzania. She's bringing back, wait for it, a stray cat...
by Pica @ 19/09/2007 2:01 pm • Permalink •
3
Glad to see you're back - in one re-connecting piece!
I know exactly what you mean - staring at something in silence - then the sound rushing in - and hot on its heels the sense of locatedness and the realisation that you're awake and the wide-eyed look around!
I like the way long-distance travel was described by the main character in William Gibson's 'Pattern Recognition' - that your soul is attached to your body by a sort of invisible elasticated umbilical cord - and that it's left behind when you take off and fly at great speeds to places great distances away - and for a period of time after landing - up to days depending on the distance travelled - you don't feel quite yourself or quite 'there' while you're waiting for your soul to be reeled in.
by Ger @ 19/09/2007 2:12 pm • Permalink •
4
Hope all went well in Brazil, and it's good to have you back!
It's always odd in September, clicking on the BSAG link and not seeing updates...
by Lyle @ 19/09/2007 9:25 pm • Permalink •
5
welcome back! i hope you remembered not to pee while standing in the rivers...
by Saltation @ 20/09/2007 4:55 pm • Permalink •
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Jonathan Briggs: Thanks. No cats brought back, but see my next post for details of another possible stray I brought back...
Pica: Hehe. Cleo would be wildly jealous, so I resisted it.
Ger: Nice description! I've read a few Gibson books, but not Pattern Recognition. Must reserve it at the library.
Lyle: Yes, it felt weird not to be blogging. It did go well, but I'm glad to be back.
Saltation: Absolutely. We did swim in the river with the caiman and the piranhas though which was exciting.
by bsag @ 20/09/2007 5:55 pm • Permalink •
7
I have occasion to do long distance travel. I find travelling east harder than travelling west.
Hope the reconnection is successful and the rest works out for the best.
by Traveller @ 02/10/2007 12:15 am • Permalink •
8
Oh I hate bus riding..Nice description
by Roman @ 25/03/2008 9:24 pm • Permalink •
9
I understand how it feel. Once I went to Egypt, this country seems like a magical trip for me.
The flight back home gives me a quite jet lag and after a long sleep at home, I feel like awaken from a dream and back to the reality.
by travel guy @ 31/03/2008 4:26 pm • Permalink •
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