So, I travel a fair amount for business and it’s rarely pretty. While I do have the opportunity to visit great cities, I rarely have time to enjoy the city outside of a windowless meeting room and overpriced hotel rooms -- save for the occasional dinner out with a friend, colleague, etc. However, one thing that this game of planes, trains and automobile affords is about three hours of solitude. It’s a pocket of time completely free of telephones, email, the temptation to check Twitter. Even in a crowded airport or oversold airplane, no one asks me to do anything. For example, to date, no flight attendant has ever asked me to open a juice box or told me it’s time to go potty. It’s my time. Now do I work on airplanes, sure. But, when you’re squeezed into the window seat in 22A with the passenger in 21 in full recline mode and your seat mate is not even thinking of giving up the coveted armrest, laptops are a physical impossibility. It’s as though I’ve been given license to indulge in a little reading material or some music. With many travel plans in front of me this week, including BlogHer (hooray), I am bound and determined to finish Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” after it has graced my nightstand, purse and bookshelf for about two years now. When did we get so over programmed that reading a 200 page book becomes a triumph of space and time? Just once, I want to be the smug book clubber saying, “Oh sure, the book was SOOO much better than the movie. But, Julia Roberts was the perfect fit.”
Posts
