I am currently in the air. I am flying somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. It's getting close to midnight, and I'm here, typing quietly into terminal as people around me sleep or watch movies or eat snacks...
Reflecting now, I suppose I made Flight Simulator because I enjoy *flights*.
But it's more than that. I would say I more broadly like the concept of *trips*...
But I don't just *like* trips—I think they are necessary for life. So I want to consider a trip expansively.
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Since I last wrote, which was quite a while ago now, my app "Flight Simulator" launched. I made it with Soft Applications, LLC, also known as my friend Dan Brewster. We slowly worked on the app for three years, where of course it underwent multiple iterations, a flock of bugs, and strange questions during the approval process from the Apple Store.
A trip has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In life, which can sometimes seem long, it's useful to have finite bits. They help us make sense of things. Often, especially in New York, in all the ongoing hustle and bustle, it's the people I take trips with I feel closest to. And I've told people over and over again, the only reason I've been able to live in New York this long is because I take extended breaks from time to time, taking trips both alone and with others.
But specifically I want to consider traveling alone...
I think what's especially important to these trips are their beginning intentions and ending reflections. Why are you taking the trip? Is it simply to get away? Maybe it starts like that, like it did for me.
Like my trip to Montreal this month. When I first told people about my trip, they were slightly puzzled. You're going to Montreal alone, for a whole month? A month is a strange amount of time to be in a place. It's almost enough to feel like you could live there.
I did buy groceries. And I did my laundry at least three times. Things started to become routine. Or, I was there long enough to establish a routine and take joy in breaking it.
But what about the middle of trips? Once you're there. And you've experienced most of the newness. Yet it's not time to leave. It's in the middle, especially during a longer trip, that things get blurry.
As I intended for this trip in Montreal, I did get a lot of work done. I had mental space to focus more than in New York. I also had more time alone than maybe I've had ... I don't know, to be honest, if I've ever had this much time alone. At first it was strange and uncomfortable, even though I craved the alone time. Exactly what I did alone maybe isn't important. I talked to myself... haha :) I wrote. I even tried computing outside. I thought about my favorite people and sent some of them audio voice memos. And near the middle-end, I experienced loneliness for the first time in a long time. I wasn't expecting it, but I welcomed it and let it hang out for a while and catch its breath...
At the end of a trip one reflects. What were the best parts? The worst? Am I different now, having taken the trip? Of course, nothing will ever be the same. Even if they appear the same at first. It may take some considerable time for me to understand the trip's effects.
This was a strange trip though... like I said, it was for a whole month. It made people confused. The few new people I met in Montreal didn't totally understand my presence either. Reminds me of this post on Ribbonfarm, On being an illegible person.
“I am nomadic for the time being. I just move through places, the way you stay put in places. I am doing things that constant movement enables, just like you do things that staying put enables.”
“For the nomad, the question of why you are temporarily somewhere is simply ill-posed. It’s like asking a settled person, 'why aren’t you moving?' For the nomad, a period of rootedness is unstable, like travel for the rooted.”
(I am listening to some soft jazz. It's from a mix a special friend made me. A friend who I'm going to visit across the ocean, now, on a new trip.)
I'll be traveling for three total months this summer.