Blog from Somewhere Over (North) America

Readers, I am on an airplane somewhere over the middle of the US, floating in the clouds as I hurdle from Washington DC to California. Speed seems to be the order of the day in the US.

Every time I return to this country of my birth I feel like someone has spun the record faster around the turntable (A note to younger readers, a turntable is a round spinning device we used to put vinyl disks on to listen to music.) How do you do it people? The security gates with their lineups of passengers moseying about in their socks. The constant noise of announcements designed to scare the heck out of people about to miss their flights. The unbelievable variety of bagels, cream cheeses, 68 varieties of coffee, and everything needed to make you bloated and wired both as you scrunch onto a seat where the concept of “a meal” is utterly foreign.
It is enough to make you, well, want to move to Bolivia or something. Oh right, I did that already.

And the baby strollers!! I saw a four week old today in a Washington restraint who was being wheeled about in a vehicle bigger than my first two cars. Now I don’t own a car but I do own a stroller, a little umbrella version. Mariana, our two year old, has never complained. We race in it at top speed in our yard now. She rides, I push.

There is hope here of course, valiant young people especially dedicated to knocking some sense into a country choking on materialism. Hey, I am not being self-righteous here. I ate a cinnamon raisin bagel today, went to Starbucks yesterday and coveted the electronics section in a Staples store. Viruses are an equal opportunity infection and who among us is immune.

Okay, perhaps I should never be locked in an airplane cabin for five hours with a laptop and a frenzied imagination. But really, USA, just between you and me. Don’t you think it is all just getting a little too weird?