Travel Stance

Blog136:

By this time tomorrow I’ll be up with a crowd coasting the skies for travel Far East … on the other side of the globe.  Travel has its challenges - crumped seating, almost nil space for movement, long wait at the lavatory at times, and if your agent forgot to put you in a cabin away from traveling families with children, you’re bound to live with annoyance of crying and chatter.  These said, however, travel, on the other end, has wide possibilities and unexpected experiences.  You must simply be willing to mentally prepare or adjust with open-wide, good spirits!

Once in comfort flight, you could begin to look around and spot all sorts of converged people in the small space your eyes could roam.  From the manner of sitting to facial expressions, business-like women and men, seemingly ordinary, might be really important folks like you!  You begin to wonder why they are on board.  You assume or guess people travel to be at an important function, a business deal, a desire for an exotic or stress-free location, a visit to family and friends, a discovery learning expedition.  Purpose is of great consequence for the traveler because it completes bearing the long, sometimes physically-draining hours up in the air.

Be warned: you will get tired playing mind games!  What then?  The stacks of old or timely newspapers and magazines will invite you to turn their pages.  You couldn’t help it.  So you pick out an interestingly covered mag, maybe, then your fingers automatically turn the pages until an article, a photograph, a graphic of interest hooks you to zoom and give it a chance to become lucid in your mind’s eye.  You are now traveling on printed words.  You are absorbing information, questioning sometimes.  You will find yourself making connections of print and meaning with something else you had seen or met before- a personal experience, a movie, a locale, a person, a song.  Thumbing through the pages could take you away from where you are and get you going far removed and enveloped in nostalgia, dream, lament, and even wonder.

Sleep and mind rest is the other option you could choose to busy yourself while in travel mode.  After all, preps for this specific travel put you in a hazy, whirlwind-like action here and there.  You could put on a noise-reduction set of earphones and blinders.  Think of nothing else but a cozy pocket of a corner in your head.  Determinedly push yourself to tune out every noise you could weed out, and presto, an oasis of serenity could surge right in the confines of your little nook!   Stay there for a good quarter of the hour … more if you wish.  You would wake up refreshed!  You would have invigorated yourself by now and will be open to new experiences- a chat perhaps with the person next to you, a viewing of an in-flight movie or if you prefer, an entertaining musical selection from one of the plane channels or an interactive game you stashed securely in your own gadget just for a situation such as you find yourself now.

Travel is indeed just what you and I make it.  If we dread it, we are labored by the stresses that come with it.  If we remain flexible and calm, we will get to our destination in a breeze.  So … get on the positive mood, and reel in good spirits, and keep our mind open for the remaining hours of long travel!