Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Hockney and travel, a personal note

There is much to be said for travel. I have travelled; I am a traveller. The Canyon is an anchor, a universe: I have travelled about in it, through it, across it, been within it.
There is no jet lag in the Grand Canyon.


The effects in Hamburg, after six days, are too disruptive to ignore; they are cautionary for the future. Sleep is certainly one; the undefeated mind, anxious to be awake and functional, ignores physical needs and fatigue. Appetite and consumption, suppressed much and appeased only by certain items; the tomato soups among them. And the consequence, an intensification of the changes radiation has already effected, are another impact on timing and activity, on the freedom in travel. There has been no adjustment in sleep need at the end; bits of naps do not satisfy. Exhaustion is pushed off by other goals. 

Clearly, I did not manage the coffee and the wine properly at the beginning. The jet lag  effects were suppressed in the first day or so; then settled in as a lack of readjustment, an inability to find a healthy routine, not helped by the whack on my rib cage. Did ibuprofen make any difference? Could any palliatives? Or is it not time to see that overcoming  jet lag requires a whole other pattern, one not trying to match the new time, but one that serves, period by period, physiological needs that, because of age perhaps, will not be regulated. That might defeat the goals of any travel. It would almost require a place of retreat, where meeting needs is not connected to the routines of the travelled-to place. 

This is not to be forgotten. The impacts, on nodding-off at crucial events, on appetite, on physical well-being and capability, on the conveniences that make being home so much more satisfying, so much more the embracing cocoon. 

Yet. Seeing and spending time with David Hockney's immense and intense Grand Canyon panoramic painting was surely worth it. Particularly since its permanent home is in Australia.
Australia??
                             Hockney on the Canyon

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