city scents

Jake was telling me that in a book he read recently (by William Gibson maybe?) the main character had a theory that when you travel you get jetlagged because your soul can't move at the same speed your body does. The character did some crazy and constant travelling and she was sure that her soul ended up getting lost along the way. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Jetlag is a very interesting state to be in. For almost ten years we've been going back and forth between entirely opposite sides of the globe and for several weeks out of each of those years we've gone around looking stunned and saying "huhhh?" all day long and then woken up bright eyed and ready to tango at 3 am. It's weird.

In some ways it's bad. Like, usually when I arrive in Canada my legs feel woozy and I sense that I am about to vomit at any time. It is only a fear of being questioned my customs jerks that allows me to keep the bile inside my guts, rather that on the floor where it might raise questions about big bags of heroin that I'd swallowed and that might've started leaking into my stomach. This time, when I got to Toronto with Seung Yi and no stroller (the idiot outside the gate told me to pick it up at the baggage area) and saw the unbelieveably long line up at immigration, I also had to hold back the big burst of girlie tears that threatened to rush forth. So, queasy and emotional. Hey, kind of like early pregnancy!

In some ways, though, jetlag is good. Without jetlag I never would've watched the South Park movie in the middle of the night at my Grandad's farm, with baby Ji in my lap getting jiggled awake when I tried to suppress my laughter while listening to the song "Uncle F----r". I also would never have gotten to know all my neighbourhoods' characters at 4 am. It's cool to get up and watch the sun rise once in a while. You feel all ahead of the game and healthy and stuff. It's only 18 hours later when you're still awake at 10 pm that you're ready to sell your left leg for just a moment of rest.

Right now I am doing my very best to stay awake until 8:15 pm and then go to bed. Phet, Ji and Seung Yi all crashed at 7. It has been a very sleep-challenged week for us. Most nights I've slept for a couple of hours in the early evening and then been up for several hours with Seung Yi, had a wretched time lying in bed trying to sleep from 2 to 3 am, and then have gotten up with Ji or Seung Yi at 4 am, and then never gone back to sleep. In addition, I've got some horrible throat infection (another fun side benefit of flying long distances: plane bugs and dry skin!)...went to the clinic today and I think the doctor said I had "faryingitis". I think I must've been hallucinating during the check up. Ji got shots in both legs today and whined about the pain all night, and Seung Yi's battling a snotty nosed cold. Whoo hoo!

However, all of this nothwithstanding, there is one super benefit to being able to travel real fast (aside, that is, from getting places real fast) and that is that when you get on a plane on one side of the world, and then you get off that plane on the other side of the world, you are really struck by the different scent that greets you on arrival when you first walk out the doors of the airport. When we got in to Delhi last week and we stepped outside I took a big breath, and felt, ahhh yes, Delhi. I think that it smells dusty and smoky here, but in a way I like. It's getting hot now, too, so the air is heavier and denser. I used to love arriving in Malaysia; the air there is somewhat similar, but also has a tropical humidity that alters it. Also, I swear to you that I can smell clove cigarettes in the air everywhere in Malaysia. No matter what, some guy is smoking a Garam within a few metres of me. In contrast, some of my favourite crispy and clear air is on the west coast in Canada. Walking out onto the sidewalk outside the Vancouver airport, me all bleary eyed and crusty faced, and sucking in that cold mountain air, well I just about fall over in appreciation. Same thing when I fly from Toronto to Calgary. My nose hairs all rise up and salute the freshness and my lungs, while momentarily stunned by the purity, puff up in happiness.

But the best thing of all is the way that that scent makes me think, oh yeahhh, I remember this place. I've been here before. I've smelled it before. And even if that smell is the cough-inducing smog of a million Bangkok taxicabs parked nose-to-nose at Don Muang airport, well, that smell means home.

[On The Road-14-April-2007]