Tear of Travel

As I was getting ready to board my plane to Jamaica, the sleeve and cuff of my windbreaker ripped. The windbreaker was a traveler's special because it is light, waterproof, surprisingly warm in pinch (traps body heat), and has three zippered pockets, plenty of room to stuff personal belongings like keys and phones while going through TSA. My back-pack already had a rip in at the top and my big travel bag was ripping at the bottom. All three have been discarded and replaced by new gear, upgraded to boot. I now have a sleek black windbreaker.  

I wasn't real sad to see the old windbreaker have its swan song. It looked like a seriously old man piece of clothing. Something an old duffer would wear out on the golf course on a cool day. When I was in California last Spring for the L.A. Festival of Books, I spotted another dude wearing the same jacket. He looked really uncool. My L.A. screenwriter buddy was wearing his fashionable leather coat. I was sporting AARP-wear.  

Tearing became my metaphor for traveling to Jamaica, recognizing that leaving the safe confines of home placed me in a stretching situation where wear and tear would happen. But, my goal was to keep on moving and deal with the fact that three essential pieces of equipment were in a state of falling apart. Things can still function at less than the ideal levels of performance and perfection over the short-term. In fact, traveling itself, to the degree we jet hundreds and thousands of miles at a time, places burdens on our psyches, and one way to lessen the stress is to let it ride and not fight it. Be smart but not over-controlling. Laugh a little.

I just returned from Baltimore from the Belgian Beerfest at Max's Taphouse. I had heard about the yearly event last summer and secured hotel reservations in the early Fall for myself and two buddies. A day and a half before the event, one of the guys dropped out. He is on the road a lot and was weary. I understood but was disappointed nonetheless. My other buddy, like me was (unknown to me) also in the throes of a cold. So, I texted him Friday and said that I didn't want to get him sick, so I was cool with him bagging it if he wanted to. Yet, since he had a cold also, we were in the same sickness space with neither full-blown illness or well, we both decided to go ahead. I am sure we left a trail of cold viruses in our trail. Neither one of us were coughing and wheezing, and kept to ourselves (what I called the Typhoid Mary Twins). I felt that we were not placing others on the fast-track to colds of their own.   

I have come to see that it is pretty selfish to be sick and go out in public touching stuff and breathing on people. Both my colds this Winter came from people who were decidedly sick out in close public spaces. In both situations, I felt trapped and doomed to come down with whatever they had. My first bout was a bronchitis-like cold that took three weeks to shake, only finding its end in the warm breezes and sunshine of Jamaica. This cold started Thursday and never took full-hold but put a hurting on me to a degree.

I joked that the hotel staff would need to burn our sheets after we checked out. All in all, the Baltimore trip was SPLENDID, a word that our-Brit sounding Marriott representative uttered when we came to check-in. I commended him on  his use of this not-often employed word these days and he commended me for commending him.  It was a real convivial conversation. 

I didn't want the cold to dictate terms for the weekend. I have learned that if there is something that I want to do to not wait. Presuming upon  tomorrow is never wise and waiting is often just another way of saying never. So my buddy and I had a grand time. The tissues saturated with snot will rot away in some landfill, or better yet engulfed in an incinerator fire, a fine ending to the nefarious cold virus.

Our experience will remain, long after our colds are gone.