Introducing the Dispatches
To say that I have a lifetime love of travel would be imprecise. When you reach a certain age, you realize that a lifetime is really multiple lifetimes, at least if you are lucky. I didn’t do much travel before my mid-20s. I spent my late-20s in the Army, where the travel was of a particular sort. In the present lifetime, I am on my third year trapped in the same city, one I haven't left since 2019.
Prior to the pandemic, in the lifetime before this one, I found myself ensconced in a dream version of my life. I had the job that I had been working towards for close to ten years. I took eight to ten work trips a year, many to places that I once considered exotic. There were another five or six pleasure trips with my family. There were long weekends in Tokyo and Shanghai; a wedding in Delhi and another outside of Venice; two weeks in South Africa. We ate at hawker stalls in Singapore and Penang. We toured Angkor Wat and the Forbidden City. We did a juice fast in Bali.
It was wonderful!
Plus, I live in a city with one of the top international airports in the world. Flying in and out of it was always a pleasure. I once timed how long it took me to get into the airport and through security. It took nine minutes. That's nine minutes from the time I stepped off the airport shuttle train, checked-in at the ticket counter, made it through security and cleared out of immigration. There are a few caveats. I was travelling business class so the ticket counter line was short. And I was flying out late at night, so security was lighter than normal. But I've flown out of the same airport at peak travel times and I don't remember it ever taking more than 15 minutes to clear security.
I still have the job. It’s still great, though the lack of travel has taken away some of the luster. But I happen to live in a part of the world that took Covid very seriously and which continues to take it very very seriously; the former is a good thing, but of the latter I am less convinced. The result is that I am entering the 30th month of not having left this city.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, it is the other side and not an approaching train. With Covid, one never knows. I do have a long trip planned for this summer, maybe a short one before that and another at Christmas.
In the meantime, I have keep myself sane by planning future trips and by remembering past ones. I place stars on Google Maps, look at flights and plan itineraries. I look through old photos and videos and savor the memories. I watch planes ascend into the sky from the window in front of my desk (the airport is just on the other side of the adjacent mountain).
I have decided to write about some of these past trips as a way of transitioning to eventually writing about future trips. Dispatches will be an occasional feature of Dutch Comfort, one that I hope will become more regular as my travels resume. There is no real vision for what these pieces will be, but I am excited to find out.
Soon enough, I will have new travels about which to write. But for now, I will have to make do with memories. I hope that you enjoy.
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