Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
A few words on being in transit
When you open this email, I will hopefully still be sleeping (not sleepless) in Seattle.
If you wait to read the newsletter until tomorrow, I’ll be on a train to Portland, Oregon; on Saturday, a flight to Denver. Then a brief road trip to Connecticut before heading to California in mid-March for yet another conference. Everything is notated and color-coded in my jam-packed day calendar so I won’t forget a thing. Well… hopefully.
The sight of my travel schedule scares many people, but it’s something I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. I’ve been exploring almost as long as I’ve been alive. My mom first took me on a plane before I was a year old, flying for a business trip from New York to San Francisco. We continued going places as I grew up: drives to Boston and Newport, transatlantic family trips to England, vacations in Miami Beach and Colonial Williamsburg and Honolulu. If the opportunity arose to see somewhere new, I always jumped to take it. Any reason to experience more of the world was a good reason.
This rationale stuck with me in college where I took my first trips without family in tow. As a radio journalist, I went down to Washington, DC to cover Trump’s first inauguration, as well as to Utah and France to do interviews at film festivals. I made the most of my winters and summers, exploring countries throughout Europe. Spring breaks were reserved for Caribbean excursions.
Travel basically defined my life in graduate school as I flew back and forth from the UK, balancing classes at Oxford and Columbia. It’s also been a big part of my time in the professional world. Last year, I went to conferences in Kansas City, Columbus, and Cincinnati to promote books and meet industry folks, as well as made side trips to Minneapolis and Chicago where I stopped by local bookshops for a chat. Max and I incorporate a decent amount of vacation into our relationship, too, feeding tortoises in the Bahamas and boating around Toronto Harbor and trekking to the outskirts of Rome for a football match.
I have earned Platinum Delta status four years in a row, getting access to the coveted Sky Club worldwide. During the period that the Amtrak rewards program was better, I had Select Plus status there, too. All before I’ve learned to drive!
There are definitely downsides to so much travel, though. Living out of suitcases can get frustrating, moving between time zones is exhausting, and I’m still not over forgetting my favorite pair of jeans on a hotel closet shelf in 2018. Occasionally the idea of staying put sounds really nice. Then I remember the many months of the pandemic where I did that and how I generally felt depressed. Suddenly, the itch to venture out crawls back up my neck, tickling my brain, and off I go planning another trip. It makes up a portion of who I am, I guess.
Though it’s not only the arrival somewhere that I enjoy. It’s about the journey. Not because I want to live like a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, but because I often find being in transit as one of the spaces where I feel my most creative and in turn can get my best writing done.
Typically, people use long haul flights to catch up on movies or reading, maybe podcasts if that’s your jam. I’m by contrast a laptop girl. You’ll see me in an aisle seat with a complimentary cranberry apple vodka, scanning over my drafts or typing out a new chapter. I’ll be this way from cruising altitude to the start of the descent. My focus here is unmatched. I think some of this has to do with not having the distractions that litter life down on the ground. No calls, no texts, no emails (in air wi-fi freaks me out). Just me and my characters, playing out on the page.
I’ve managed to successfully recreate this setting on trains, too, setting my phone to airplane mode and my AirPods to silent. While I’m wont on the Amtrak to spend a few minutes gazing out the window at the Hudson River, I mostly feel my hours on the train are an equally good place to get lost in my words. I do have to be careful not to miss my stop, of course.
There’s also a sense of double productivity in these settings. Not only am I writing, I’m getting myself to where I need to be. As a person obsessed with making good use of my time, this means a lot.
I’m excited to live—and to write about—my next couple of weeks on the road, to see old friends and experience things and take a ton of photos. But I’m equally as pumped to have moments by myself in airports and train stations and hotel lounges, to let my creative spirit wander in these places and find out what it comes up with. Maybe I’ll be able to cut my 6K-word sex scene into something reasonable. Or perhaps I’ll nail down the phrasing for that particularly feeling of really liking someone but not quite nearing love yet. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m going to be on email less and in moments more. I can’t wait.
As much as I love my in transit days and the perks they bring, I probably wouldn’t advise anyone to copy me beat by beat. Not everybody should be jet lagged masochists. Instead, I think the lesson here is for any creatives out there to make an effort to leave your desks this week. Hop on the subway. Board a crosstown bus. Go for a short stroll in the park. Disconnect for a bit and instead focus on moving your body through the world. Then you can channel that feeling at home and write about it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I probably have a plane to catch…
Rachel’s Weekly Pics:
It’s the point in winter where my skin has had enough of the cold. One thing that’s helped are these You Had Me at Aloe fuzzy socks, infused with aloe vera to smooth and soften tootsies. I like to wear mine overnight to let the magic happen while I snooze.
My Instagram feed introduced me to the comedy stylings of Luke Holloway, particularly his videos turning the worst dating app conversations into banger songs. If you need a little brain rot, why not poke around his profile? You will squirm and laugh and thank me later.
I recently discovered my favorite Midtown Chinese restaurant will deliver to my apartment, so Tang Pavilion has now joined the dining in rotation. If you happen to be near the southern end of Central Park, they do a delicious Chow Fun and classic pork fried dumplings.