The feeling of being elsewhere

It’s not until you arrive at home and pick up your comfortable rhythms that you clearly feel the feeling of being elsewhere.

In the last six weeks, I have visited:

• Seattle, WA
• Olympia, WA
• San Diego, CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Taipei, Taiwan
• Chia-Yi, Taiwan

In each of these places, planes of existence, there exists an particular song of life.  Each has its own melodies, and people shuffle, walk, dance, and sing differently.

When I arrived at my comfortable one-bedroom apartment at home in DC, smelling the musty air and feeling the dust, I felt the ineffable feeling of missing travel, missing being on the road and elsewhere.

In particular, the Taiwanese song was unmistakably Asian, a rich squalid contradiction of street and hotel room, skyscraper and slum.  Each meal struck a note, be it an frogs’ egg drink or the spicy chicken meal at McDonalds (which helpfully delivered to our hotel).  Each week in Taiwan had its own sonata, it’s own sequence of events and impact on the putative listener.

Like a seductive bolero, Taiwan danced with me, danced until the wee hours of the morning.  Its charms were on display, from Deaflympic to brothel—courteously, slowly, with a bow, the country opened its door and allowed us in for a space, perhaps until the end of the song or the next.

Musical metaphors may fall on deaf ears, but there is much to be said for the pounding of one against another—be it on a drum or during sex.  For everything has its rhythm and cannot be ignored, and rewards those who listen with their heart.