The Virtue of Jet Lag

Jet lag. What a wonderfully oxymoronic term, connoting (or is that denoting?) the rush that slows; the propulsion that regresses. Yesterday, rather hung over from fatigue (late-night browsing in the Double U Double U Double U Universe will do that), I was driving to my haircut place (i.e., Hirsute Psychotherapy by Don), and I experienced memories of recent trips. And the memories were of first moments of arrival in Ireland and in Berlin.

The gauzy, slow-motion sleepwalking of arrival in Shannon, the terror of trying to drive a car on the "wrong" side of the road, the traipsing through a cemetery in Ennistymon as the sun was rising (and Youngest One was toppling over with sleep in the back sleep).

Or sitting in a Mercedes-Benz taxi en route from Tegel Airport, trying to converse with a driver who knew not Word One of what I was saying, canals and rivers, graffiti splattered on stately buildings, falling asleep during a ballet class's lullaby piano melodies, the Brandenburg Gate looming at the end of Unter-den-Linden.

Powerful memories.

And it dawned on me (though not the dawn of vertiginous arrival). These jet-lagged memories recur frequently. They are triggers of further evocations. They are the madeleines featured by Marcel Proust, those tea biscuits that a bite of which [grammar check, please!] transported the narrator into a journey of the past.

I have come to understand that (despite the bone-crushing weariness, deep disorientation, and grouchiness) jet lag is the portal into a new world (it seems to hit me more en route from America to Europe, probably because of the morning arrival). It's really not all that bad, looking back. It's more like we are expected to bemoan it (and I understand why; I do not sleep well at all on planes), but if we roll with it, jet lag yields later benefits (sure, sure, you're saying; so does a colonoscopy).

I salute Jet Lag Memories.