Jet Lag Part II

How does one keep from getting 'sea sick' living on a constantly moving vessel? By looking into the horizon line? A place far far away which, by definition, is also continually moving further and further away? Choose a window seat and become a spectator. Sit outside and get fresh air. Go to sleep.

I've tried it all.

Using drugs is about the only thing I have not tried because I feel drugs only remove you further, create a fake reality, making you numb, anesthetising you, making it impossible for you to respond to stimulus in an effective way. You just won't be able to save yourself in the end.

I have suffered with Jet Lag for almost 32 years now. The things I see from my window seat only serve to make me feel less and less in control of my surroundings, paralysed and incapable of action yet totally awake and lucid in the dream or nightmare I'm in.

Claustrophobic and frustrated, angry.

Without land to walk on, this mind is merely floating. My sea legs never developed. My wings never grew. I'm stuck. I'm sick. I'm lost. Adrift. Even falling would be better. At least it has direction.

What time is it now? Where in the world am I? How far to go before I reach landfall? They say the world is over 70% ocean. What is the likely hood then of ever reaching it? And the sky is infinite.

Timezones are the killer. Moving from one timezone to the next is disorientating to the point where you often forget the difference between past, present and future. But time is a man made measurement and what you are really feeling is distance traveled. I've traveled thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles from the place I was born. With that kind of disconnect from your self how can we expect to feel any sense of wholeness or homeness?

My place of birth is so far away I feel little for it which is a terrible thing to happen to a body, yet it remains enigmatic. If it holds any meaning to me still, I want to travel back and find out. It is a desert - mystical, mysterious, historical. There are few places on this earth which evoke such a sense of wonder and introspection. The desert has meaning to me. I understand it. I can relate to the wisdom in its desolation and isolation and the humbling affect of infinity it has on people.

I imagine the desert to be warm and windy with a hint of a smell of sea. I have not been to a desert since but perhaps that experience, now long gone over miles and miles, has left a memory, a map, a meaning.

Boxing Day - A Post Mortem

A spice rack
Two sets of chopsticks with matching ethnic place mats
Body Shop gift set - Madringo? scented
T shirt
Bar of soap

PLus -

One book of Kerouac poems
One magical notebook
One Chicken and Plums
One packet of BBQ flavoured stacks

: )

Jet Lag

Jet Lag - The effect of time and distance on self identity

My body is weighed down by fatigue
My eyes have black puffy rings around them
My brain is alive and over active but in that drug induced like way, dreamlike
Dizzy and delirious
I tell myself it's only jet lag
But I don't think I have ever fully recovered.

Sometimes, when I've been traveling in an elevator and get out I still feel the ground rocking. In fact there have been times where I just need to stand by an elevator and wait, I feel a sway. It's as if my body is recognising, preempting the motion, preparing for an unnatural state of constant movement.

A balancing act that I never quite learned. But I am quite good at riding pillion on a motorbike.

My Christmas Wish List 2009

Every year my family asks me what I would like for Christmas and every year I usually say it doesn't matter or something for the kitchen. I don't think I am very difficult to get a present for. I have loads of interests and wanting of so many things. But because it's all about giving and not receiving I guess it's not appropriate to state specifically what you want as if the thought in the gift is what counts most. So I usually end up with a load of stuff I just would not even look at past Christmas day. But what if there is no thought or if there is, one seriously lacking in knowledge, how can that giver make an informed decision? Buying presents for people should be personal and chosen carefully. A gift should either reflect the giver's passion and love or that of the receiver. And most of all, the gift should reflect the giver's relationship to the receiver.

With that said, here is a fantasy wish list, some gifts are grand and luxurious, others practical and simple, but by no means is this list a have to haves. Just things I've been eying all year or maybe just a one day whimsy. Nevertheless, anything and everything on this list would be much appreciated, loved and received with much gratitude. Here's hoping...

1. Likewise by Ariel Schrag
2. Chicken and Plums by Marjane Satrapi
3. Sainthood by Tegan and Sara
4. Rome - the tv series dvd set Season 1
5. A magic writing journal to inspire me, blank pages, preferable pocket sized and not Moleskine
6. Any fine art picture book or something about art theory
7. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
8. A collection of Jack Kerouac's poems and/or Desolation Angels
9. Travel guide to Eastern Europe and/or Iraq/Afghanistan
10. A decent digital compact camera - something like the Lumix LX3 or Panasonic GH1
11. A new decent wok
12. A pair of knee high futsal socks, preferably black
13. A new writing pen

Quote of the Day

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.
– Bertrand Russell