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When you get on a plane, what’s the first thing you do? Stick your nose in a book and throw on your iTunes? Or begin a conversation with the person next to you? Do you hope no one sits near you, or is your favorite part of traveling those conversations that happen spontaneously and the connections that are made? Do you like having a travel companion, or do you prefer to trek out into the world alone?

A lot of your answers to those questions have to do with whether or not you’re an introvert.

I, in case you may not have noticed, am an introvert. Through and through. For a long time, though, I didn’t know that. I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t really like parties. I rarely wanted to “go out.” Even though I liked people, a lot, I didn’t necessarily want to hang out with them all the time. Sure, dinner and a movie. Game night. Out for drinks once in a while. All great. But if I have social obligations more than once a week (or even less than that, to be honest) and I start to feel stressed out about going out yet again. Like I said, it’s not that I don’t like people . It was that after a while, I just start getting exhausted. I would be turning down friends and invitations, and always felt bad about it, especially when they thought that I didn’t like them, or didn’t want to spent time with them.

All those years, I didn’t assume I was introverted, though — after all, I’m a bit shy (okay, a lot), but I was social and had lots of friends. Thus, I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me.

After all, there is this whole idea in our culture that spending lots of time socializing is good for you. That those people with close extended family and friends live longer and are happier. Pshaw, I say! No, I’m kidding, of course. But I do wonder sometimes if socializing really is good for introverts, or if that’s just another one of those “Myths of Health” that get spouted around without much research. I love those that I love — and I love them just as much (sometimes more) when I’m not with them. I sometimes thought, “If I don’t become more social, I’m going to be unhealthy, unhappy and I’m going to die young.”

And then I heard someone say something along these lines: “Extroverts get energy from being around people; Introverts get tired from being around groups.” Bam. Oh. I get it. I am an introvert.

And I came across an article recently that reminded me of this once again. Although the article isn’t about travel specifically, I found it especially enlightening for that purpose: The Top 5 Things Every Extrovert Should Know About Introverts.

Here are a couple of key points that he touches on that are especially true for me:

• Introverts dislike small talk. Totally. Bores me to tears. Tell me a story, break my heart, give me the nitty-gritty, talk about something that really really matters, please.
• Introverts can do the same thing extroverts do — I can be charming, funny, and have a blast in a group — but only for a limited time. By the time the main course is finished, I’m ready to go home. Forget about drinks, dessert and dancing after.
• Introverts need time alone. Lots of it. It doesn’t mean we don’t love you (we do, we do!). But trust me, we’re such better friends when we don’t get to see you very often. If that makes an iota of sense.

As to traveling, I don’t mind traveling alone. In fact, I like it a lot. But I also like one-on-ones. That, to me, is interesting and fun and doesn’t feel like an exhausting crowd. On the other hand, the thought of staying at a bed-and-breakfast where I’m expected to sit around the table and small talk with strangers — before I’ve even had coffee?! No thank you. And yet, I’ve traveled with friends and stayed with near-strangers (Hi, Nikki’s fantastic family!) who I adored, and who I’m so glad to have in my life.

So, what do I do when I get on an airplane? I stick my nose in a book and I throw on my headphones. Why? In retrospect, it’s probably because I am afraid of the small talk that is in the future. I know, I just know, that I’m missing out on meeting some amazing people — you never know who’s sitting next to you — but I just can’t bring myself to expend the energy. And the truth is, I’d rather spend that time doing what I love and recharging my batteries so that when I arrive wherever I’m going, I have lots of social energy saved up for those friends and family members that I adore.

Introvert? Yes. Anti-social? No.

I’m very much looking forward to spending time (in small increments, of course) with loved ones back in the Pacific Northwest. I’ll be the girl getting off the plane, tucking her book back in her bag and pulling her headphones out of her ears, preparing to break out of her shell. If only for a few hours.

Far and fast, s.

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ADDENDUM: How cool is this? Forwarded to me from Nikki, who found it after she read my post. The Joys of Solitude.

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PS — Me thinks a lot of writers are introverts. Case in point:

“I have never found a companion so companionable as solitude.” ~Henry David Thoreau

“Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birds’ nests in trees. I missed getting a picture of the turtle, because he got scared of me and my lostness.

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I got lost yesterday. It’s been a long time since that happened. After all, it’s pretty hard to get lost in a city, even one the size of Forth Worth. But I managed it. Shocker, I know. See, there’s this pretty park that follows the river. It’s between the coffee shop and the couch, the two places where I spend most of my time. I like to walk it when I have time, but it’s a winding convoluted park that borders apartment complexes and houses and I don’t know what all else. There are little maps on signs, but they confuse those of us who aren’t good at GPSing our way through things. Mainly because the part that says “You Are Here” is rather big and the part that says, “Go here,” doesn’t point in the real direction one is supposed to go (like, for example, if you wanted to go straight ahead, the sign tells you to go sort of southwest). Also, the sign is designed by someone using drugs who is also sleep-deprived, because there is a lot of Point A, Point B, Point 4 stuff going on. So if you want to get from Point A to Point 20, you must stop at Points L, 11 and Apple in between. It breaks my brain (pictures of this map-mess to come, next time it stops raining long enough for me to trudge back into the Land of the Lost).

Thus, I found myself wandering around, trying to make my way from the coffee shop where I’d started to the couch where I wanted to end up. The walk is usually about an hour, as the crow doesn’t fly (meaning: main roads), but it also is loud, dirty, car- and catcall-filled, and boring. Enter park.

Exit part. After 80 minutes of walking and … where was I? Two blocks away from where I’d entered said park. I walked for an hour and a half and landed, yes, two blocks away from the path where I’d started. The only good news was that I was on a street I knew, and the bus was destined to arrive in less than five minutes.

The park was cool, by the way. I saw a turtle treading water in the runoffy, manmade river, as well as some geese and ducks. A nice man jogged by me and said hello. I found a “lake” with a big fountain in the middle of it and a playground. I got a solid walk in, even if the last twenty minutes of it were marred by my concern that I was not going to find my way home. And, I made the bus just in time.

I miss getting lost. There’s something awesome and incredibly comforting about the moment that comes after, that joyous moment of “I know where I am!” And at least temporarily feeling like, yes, you do know not only where you are, but where you are going.

Far and fast, s.

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I just bought a plane ticket. For the first time in forever. Tickets are fairly cheap right now, considering (bankrupt airlines, terrorist threats) while still being fairly expensive, also considering (no job, no home, *ahem* no job). Still, I’m excited to get on one and go somewhere (which should tell you that it’s been a long, long time since I was on a plane, if I’m actually missing it). I don’t mind riding on planes the way that some people do. I loved it the first and second time, and then it became commonplace, a bit of annoyance (no room! leg cramps! no pillows left! the guy next to me talks too much! I can’t see the movie screen!) — how quickly we become accustomed to things that are so brilliant and impossible (we’re flying for fuck’s sake!) that we should always be enamored, aghast, and at least slightly in awe in them.

But we’re not  — well, some of us are afraid of them, and I think that’s probably a smart move too, in many ways. Still, the majority remains: Ho-hum, it’s a plane. It better get me there on time.

I’m not a big person of prayer, but I will say that I believe in karma (as it’s used today, meaning that it’s sort of like a bank machine: You get out of it what you put into it. If I put in lots of good karma, then I’ll get back good karma. Of course, it’s probably more like a slot machine than a bank machine, which is why we’re so often standing around, crossing our fingers, whispering, “C’mon, c’mon, gimme Good Karma, Good Karma! Go Good Karma!” and doing the same for those who’ve wronged us, sure that they will eventually get what they deserve).

Which (sort of) brings me back to karma and airplanes. So I don’t pray — I didn’t even pray during the lightning storm on the way back from Mexico. I just looked out the window as the streaks crashed through the sky toward the plane and thought, “I’ve done my best, I’ve done a lot of what I wanted to do, I’ve been a decent person, if this is the end, so be it.” Of course, I was really really glad after, when we landed, to discover it wasn’t the end, and I did another little karma dance of wonder.

Which (sort of) brings me back — again — to karma and airplanes. I don’t pray, but I do a kind of karma thought. It goes like this: I don’t care if the plane is late, I don’t care if I have to sit on the tarmac forever, I don’t care if they have to fix something, I don’t care if I have to stay overnight in some town I hate, I don’t care if I don’t get fed… Just get me there eventually, alive. Breathing. Unbroken. This isn’t really karma, in the traditional sense, but it feels like it is. If I am calm about the things that are small and insignificant, then I will get good karma when things really matter.

Now that I think of it, that’s probably not just how I fly, but how I live my whole life. I won’t sweat the small stuff, and I will have faith that the big stuff will come together, as it so often does. So if I don’t get a drink on the plane, or if they run out of blankets, I’ll be a little grumpy but I won’t get too up in arms about it. I figure I’d better save my “up in arms” for that moment when we’re hovering just above the ground, our wings folded, our wheels not yet tethered to the earth.

Far and fast, s.

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“All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states.” ~Buddha

[Five-minute poem. Mostly written while walking the dog beneath a tarry, starry sky]

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“In Scotland, it is a popular belief that a few hairs of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences. Applied to drinks, it means, if overnight you have indulged too freely, take a glass of the same wine next morning to soothe the nerves. ‘If this dog do you bite, soon as out of your bed, take a hair of the tail in the morning.’” ~Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

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Hair of the Dog

If I lap at the corner of your mouth it is because

consequences spill from your collar, curled tufts

frothing between starched folds. I don’t even drink.

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Lost items, like silver keys and virginities, hang from

a loop around your neck. No one wants them back.

Everything you touch tastes of pennies. I finger

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the blue maps your mouth unrolls across my thighs,

the stippled path from elbow to knees.

Without my glasses on, the key is unreadable.

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Every morning I wake up to a mouthful of fur.

I don’t remember how it got there.

Or which one of us must be put down.

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Far and fast, s.

…this again.

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And it made me miss Scotland with a fierce sadness that literally brought me to tears. Not just Scotland. All the people and places and events that were part of it. The me that was part of it.

All gone now. Always here, but all gone too. The weight of it paralyzes me.

Far and fast, fight for each breath, s.

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Sometimes things just take on a life of their own, don’t they? Especially when you’re writing. I started with High Lonesome on a bunch of bricks in downtown Ft. Worth and ended up with a prose poem that, really, has little to do with any of that.

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High Lonesome

In lesser hands, this would be a pie. In mine, it is two scorched oven mitts and a castoff crust. This recipe is the only souvenir from the flame-baked kitchen. Nana stole it from a turkey somewhere in the Idaho woods. Now it’s photocopied on index cards, passed around the table like leaves. Nothing is scarce anymore. Between my fingers, what should have stuck together becomes a million crumbs. The things we destroy in the making. There are cherry pickers for a reason. My thumbs bleed like maraschinos. Every drop a letter home.

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Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

Fifteen-minute poem prompt. GO! (I’ll post mine tomorrow).

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Tree in downtown Ft. Worth. It’s snowing and blowing and perfect for staying inside doing nothing. Merry days!

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This is a fantastic video — and an even more fantastic idea from the creative mind of Stefan Sagmeister. I love his idea of taking five the retirement years and moving them forward. I also loved his sense of humor, and the kinds of things he came up with while on sabbatical. One of the things I find most interesting — and disheartening — are some of the comments from viewers (not on the You Tube section, but in the actual Ted website, which I couldn’t embed). They talk about how ridiculous this is because they don’t have money, because it’s only for the rich, because no one but the famous can make it work — and I think it’s that kind of thinking that holds us down, that keeps us doing the drudgery of life without joy.

I think a lot about what it means to be creative, about what I’m doing for money versus what I’m doing for love. I know how I start to feel when I’m writing too much or too much of the same thing or when I’m not writing things that challenge me. I get dulled. I still write, but it’s this kind of drag. It’s becomes, “When will this be done?” instead of “Wow, where did the time go?” I think that we have to make a choice to remain creative, to move on and see things that re-open our brains and our sense of wonder.

This year, for me, has been half creative — my time in Scotland was a sabbatical, although I didn’t call it that, because I was writing every day, and I didn’t see it for what it was. It was a sabbatical from “real work” (meaning: paying work) and a change to live the kind of life he’s talking about: writing, walking, exploring, being creative in whatever way that came to me.

Now, I’m back in the other side — the writing for money, the head-down, fingers at the keyboard side. I miss the sabbatical already. But I also don’t know if I could do that year-round…

Oh, hell…who am I kidding? I totally could! If only I didn’t need to actually make some money once in a while.

Far and fast, s.