this waking life

in some ways, international travel can be like living inside a dream. I find that I go through my day in something of a bubble, in that hyperextended self-absorption and awareness that is usually peculiar to dreams. You do not really know what is going on around you, though at the same time it is all familiar. You can wash your hands in the restroom, but there are no towels to dry them with. You can see pictures of the food, but can't read the menu. The traffic is on the wrong side of the street. Baseball is on television, and the 3rd base coach throws all the same signs, but you have no idea who is winning because you can't read the names of the teams. Similar enough to be familiar, but all skewed in that dreamlike way.You feel like you are living inside your own thoughts, because communication is such a struggle. If I could envision it externally, I would see myself as static and crystalline, in high detail and high contrast, and the world would slip around me like water flowing around a tree branch.

I think it is partly this feeling that makes travel so interesting. The minutiae of everday life is thrust into close scrutiny and observation. You're pondering the different brands of chewing gum like you've never seen it before in your life. At the same time, I can see how living every day with this level of effort can get tiresome, and then you feel homesick. I've never traveled long enough to reach that point, myself. I wonder how long it would take?