Flying out to Detroit

I'm flying out to Detroit this evening for a wedding. This is the first time I've been in an airport since I arrived back in Portland last December. After spending so much time in airports last year (25+ flights and three overnight adventures via Brazil, Iceland and Singapore) it feels very strange to be back. Much has happened, six-and-a-half months have gone by but suddenly I feel like I was just here yesterday. I'm remembering my routines, the things I'd do to pass the time, the way my travel brain would "turn-on" during these days between cities and countries and guide me. No matter how weary I was after departing point A I wouldn't sleep until I was safe and sound again in point B.

Of course there's a little bit more involved with international travel. There are passports, customs, new currencies and language barriers. New maps to learn and internalize just well enough to get myself from the airport to... wherever I'd be staying for the coming weeks. Its was an adventure. It was difficult, but joyful. There was lots and lots and lots of time spent alone with my thoughts. Watching people do people stuff. Thinking about where I was, how people are, things back home and the people I know there.

Traveling from Portland to Detroit for a weekend is not the same sort of adventure, but it puts my brain in the same sort of place. I'll be stopping at Chicago for a transfer — the same place I stopped for a transfer from New York when I briefly stopped home, as something of a surprise, just a bit over year ago now... Between Brazil and Iceland.

I suspect this strange feeling will pause once I arrive in Detroit — replaced by an altogether different, strange feeling called utter exhaustion depending on how much sleep I can get on this redeye — and be replaced by lovely, joyful feelings as I witness my dear friends get married.

I may have to pre-write some blog posts to keep on top of my resolution to write a post for everyday... Good thing I wrote that post on how to automate blog posts.