Modern travel is abrupt. It doesn't matter to me that it takes 30+ hours to travel from one side of the world to the other (which is A LONG TIME in one seat) but it is still sudden! Just a day or two ago I was on the other side of the world in a poor, developing country where people struggle to have enough food to feed their families this week or even for lunch. There are no 6 or 8 lane roads, the stop lights don't work, customer service is non-existent, and so many other things are different - I can't even list them all.
And yet living in that setting I feel close to the earth - i see people every day working in their garden, selling vegetables, sweeping the yard, drawing water, carrying bundles of wood or grass, laundry drying in the wind - the earth and it's gifts are close and visible. Even the house I live in is made from clay bricks made from the surrounding soil, fired with trees that grew in the distant past from the ground nearby. Being this close to the earth means that I am usually dirty - somehow. Mostly it's my feet which I admit that since I rarely wear socks and shoes (they are in sandals or flip flops) and covered with dust or dirt. (I like to imagine that I keep the rest of myself relatively clean :) ).
SUDDENLY I got in a plane and sat for a while and now I find myself 22 stories from the ground... Up here it's clean (and I LOVE that!!) yet I also feel the distinct separation from the earth. I can go to a number of restaurants within walking distance and get food within 5 minutes (and that is AMAZING) but not even the one who sold it to me knows where it was grown or looked in the eyes of the lady who grew it. I'm on the 22nd floor. My windows don't open and I can't feel the breeze or even know what the temperature is like outside - it is controlled with a little white box on my hotel wall.
I don't have to stay up here though - I realize that - and living in the Hilton is not "normal" life. The contrast is so stark that I couldn't help reflect on the separation and reconcile myself in some way to this sudden change; to suddenly finding myself on the 22nd floor.
