Hey YOU, Distract ME
The magazines are the first thing I notice. Stepping into the terminal, three hours from the Caribbean, from sharing a row with wild haired circus performers and sunburnt tourists, Antiguans with musical accents and crying babies. I can feel my tan fading already as I look down at my proper shoes constricting my feet so recently and continually free of being shod. I stumble through the terminal with my bags full of books, bottles of rum, offshore foul weather gear, spices, dirty salt stained tshirts.
The magazines blare "America!" I want to turn around and climb back on board, back to sensory and technological deprivation, back to floating through time on much more languid waves.
The magazines are everywhere: in rows upon rows screaming down from the walls, in spinny stands, above the chewing gum and neck pillows, between the aspirin and Skittles. The women are smiling and crying, praised and ridiculed. Men grin nervously or grimace, triumphant or accused.
Distraction! America!
Obsession! America!
Fanaticism! Celebrity!
Don't think about your own life!
I found myself drawn to the headlines and repulsed by the impulse to pick up the glossy paper. I resisted, bee-lining past the stands towards the next security checkpoint.
I walked through the terminal with an increasing feeling of dread: It was inevitable. I had to turn on my cell phone. It was a brick for two happy months. Two months I didn't miss it. Could I get away with not re-activating my chaos creating umbilical cord to all those on my contact list, my email lists, my skype lists, my facebook friends? Sure I could, but I wouldn't. I needed to be picked up at the airport and was itching to text a few people.
At my next gate with iPhone on and texts fluttering in, magazines barely registering in my quickly desensitized mind, the smell of my salty morning bath no longer on my airplane dried skin, I vow to keep reading. Not to let go of the last vestige of focus garnered on my stateside absence. Without computer, magazines, TV, (fill in your favorite distraction), I read. Here are some of my recommendations:
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabelle Allende
Pirate Republic by Colin Woodard
Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst
I am now sitting in a coffeeshop in New York City with two dozen voices competing in the small space. Half that many bodies sit with computers or phones, fingers communicating and pausing to pick up mugs of lukewarm coffee, light and sweet or acidy black. The door opens and swings shut, several languages confuse my ears. Distraction? Yes. But human, full of energy and life, three dimensional, tangible. Welcomed. There is no screen to hold back the reactions, the transfer of energies, the honesty in a scream or a tear that so often emerge in public in New York. Despite the frenetic atmosphere, I can focus.
The voices are drops in the city sea, waves pushing as all along together.
No magazine headlines or cryptic texts needed to communicate with a glance or an electric touch.
The magazines blare "America!" I want to turn around and climb back on board, back to sensory and technological deprivation, back to floating through time on much more languid waves.
The magazines are everywhere: in rows upon rows screaming down from the walls, in spinny stands, above the chewing gum and neck pillows, between the aspirin and Skittles. The women are smiling and crying, praised and ridiculed. Men grin nervously or grimace, triumphant or accused.
Distraction! America!
Obsession! America!
Fanaticism! Celebrity!
Don't think about your own life!
I found myself drawn to the headlines and repulsed by the impulse to pick up the glossy paper. I resisted, bee-lining past the stands towards the next security checkpoint.
I walked through the terminal with an increasing feeling of dread: It was inevitable. I had to turn on my cell phone. It was a brick for two happy months. Two months I didn't miss it. Could I get away with not re-activating my chaos creating umbilical cord to all those on my contact list, my email lists, my skype lists, my facebook friends? Sure I could, but I wouldn't. I needed to be picked up at the airport and was itching to text a few people.
At my next gate with iPhone on and texts fluttering in, magazines barely registering in my quickly desensitized mind, the smell of my salty morning bath no longer on my airplane dried skin, I vow to keep reading. Not to let go of the last vestige of focus garnered on my stateside absence. Without computer, magazines, TV, (fill in your favorite distraction), I read. Here are some of my recommendations:
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabelle Allende
Pirate Republic by Colin Woodard
Healing Mantras by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland
Three Junes by Julia Glass
The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst
I am now sitting in a coffeeshop in New York City with two dozen voices competing in the small space. Half that many bodies sit with computers or phones, fingers communicating and pausing to pick up mugs of lukewarm coffee, light and sweet or acidy black. The door opens and swings shut, several languages confuse my ears. Distraction? Yes. But human, full of energy and life, three dimensional, tangible. Welcomed. There is no screen to hold back the reactions, the transfer of energies, the honesty in a scream or a tear that so often emerge in public in New York. Despite the frenetic atmosphere, I can focus.
The voices are drops in the city sea, waves pushing as all along together.
No magazine headlines or cryptic texts needed to communicate with a glance or an electric touch.
Comments