Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
done anything never to have seen. I was fifty before I wrote a full-length book, and by
then I thought I'd never write one, much less two.
And then to fall in love with a woman I'd known for twenty-five years, someone who
belonged in a whole different compartment of my life—where the friends and colleagues
are, where the people who raised families are—well, life has to do a lot of meandering
around corners and into landscapes you can't imagine in order for that to happen.
Life is short, too, of course.
This morning I went to the gym and pedaled the exercise bike for an hour, a habit
I'm determined to keep up through the winter. I don't much like riding on city streets,
truth be told, but I'd like to keep my legs and lungs somewhere close to the shape I just
whipped them into, and I like being this thin. My appetite hasn't slowed down, and now
that I'm not working out all day every day, the weight I lost is bound to return. It's only
been a week and I've put back two or three pounds already, but I can at least try and
stall the inevitable.
Yes, I recognize the irony of stationary bicycling: all time, no distance. As I was ped-
aling this morning, cranking up the resistance so that I was working hard and breathing
heavily, I began counting my pedal strokes, monitoring my calorie count, checking the
down-ticking timer on the screen of my iPod as it shuffled through a couple dozen songs
by the Rolling Stones—all different ways of being impatient with the clock.
Jan called a little while ago. I told her about the snowstorm, and she pouted, wanting
to be here.
“I hate missing weather,” she said.
She'll be back in New York in about a month, for Thanksgiving. We talked about our
plans.
“I can't wait,” she said. “Can you?”
“Well . . . ,” I began.
How many mundane ways do I encourage later to arrive sooner? My housekeeper
comes every two weeks, and the last few days I'm antsy over my own untidiness. I'm
bored in the second act of a play and want it to be over. I'm writing something that's
troublesome—an article, an essay, a journal entry, a book about a bike ride—and envi-
sion, with an ache of longing, the final sentence.
Here's something I understand now that I didn't eighteen years ago, and that I hadn't
quite figured out yet in July. Even when you're far from home, exhausted, coughing,
missing your girlfriend, and grinding uphill in the rain, where you are is where you be-
long. Never wish away distance. Never wish away time.
