That isn’t usually a trick question. I’m currently flying over the ocean halfway between New York and Johannesburg, and reality is having a rough time sorting itself out. I left San Francisco at 10:30 last night. Seventeen hours have gone by, and it’s now 12:30 AM. Seventeen does not usually equal two. Or twenty-six. So the plane is dark, everyone around me is fast asleep, and I can’t decide whether I’m exhausted since it’s midnight and I haven’t slept since Friday night – whenever that was – or if I’m wide awake since it’s the middle of Sunday afternoon. This is all very disorienting. Of course, my nerves are all over the place too. I’m very anxious and excited to get to East London to meet my host family, explore the city and begin my project, but at the same time I’m not quite sure what I’ll find when I get there. It doesn’t help that I haven’t been out of the United States since 2002, when I dipped over the border to Canada. Not too great a feat when you live in Washington. As soon as I get to East London I know things will settle down and start to make sense, but for now, on this dark time-traveling plane, it’s hard to believe that I’ll ever make it back to the ground. And with 8 hours to go, I might need a little more Sudoku.
(12:30 am Monday, August 23)
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