I think I've finally slept off my five day jet-lag hangover. It's sad in a way. Getting up for days on end at 3:00 a.m. because my body still wants to believe I'm dreaming in a canopied, brocade-draped bed in Venice is sorta romantic. It's like straddling two worlds, holding on to what eventually becomes the mist of memory for a few days longer. But then, predictably, trudging up the Ditmars Boulevard subway station steps slams me concretely into focus. We ain't walking Dubrovnik's city walls no more, Dorothy.
I felt something akin to physical pain as I slogged through Bride Wars, Confessions of a Shopaholic and He's Just Not that Into You on the flight back to New York. Swimming in the Adriatic rendered me completely brain dead and zapped my attention span into a thin, flat line. I could hardly open my Atlantic Monthly, which I'd faithfully carried with me the whole of the trip, really, really meaning to complete that article on happiness. Instead of reading, I slammed plastic cup after plastic cup of Diet Pepsi with my traveling companion, who sat bolt upright in her seat, staring blankly into the endless sea of scalps in front of us.
At one point I wondered aloud why it is that I continue to subject myself to these extended bouts of travel when the return becomes more and more brutal as the years go on. Sitting on a Delta flight with my knees at one with my solar plexus, it felt impossible to understand. The more trips I take, the easier it is for me to detach from my own reality completely. But plugging myself back in, opening American newspapers, reactivating the data package on my Blackberry has become a heartbreaking routine, weighted with disappointment.
Travel is like crack for me. The planning, the executing, the experience, the rush of being out of my element--I seek it out and am willing to risk danger, debt and alienation for the fix. And I've discovered that the withdrawl part, which descends as I'm standing on line at security to return home is as intense as any kind of depression. The notion that I've run out of the drug, come to the end of the line, seen what there is to see, felt the breeze, climbed the stairs, tried the fish and that there can't be any more for now is something I'm unwilling to accept. Like a junkie, I'm strung out on my own wanderlust.
I was gonna tell you all about Croatia. Lemme give it to you in a mood-stimulating capsule. If instead of climbing a metal ladder into a cellophane blue swimming pool, you descended the same ladder over a cluster of rocks into the sea, you'd be in Croatia. If the width of your embrace were like an impenetrable medieval wall, you'd be standing above Dubrovnik in Croatia. If thin crust pizza and sardines were like currency, you'd be cashing in in Croatia. If you woke up every morning to espresso and azure, red rooftops and laundry lines, you'd be waking up in Croatia.
And Venice? Ah, it's mandatory. Miss it at your own peril. The memory of waking up to the sound of feral cats meandering its canals will stir inside me forever.
I guess this is the bargain. The more I see, the harder it is to reconcile it all with my New York life. If I wanna cash in on the experience, I gotta pay that price. For now, I'll be keeping my memories alive by watching Girls Next Door over a pot of Istrian white truffle mashed potatoes.
Forever forcing my two lives to come together.
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