29.5.07

on things to do in the zurich airport for an hour

This will not be an extensive catalogue; actually, this won't be a catalogue at all. If it were a catalogue it would be littered with variations on "Buy yummy swiss chocolates," but this is not a catalogue.

This is a transition. I am on my way. I've been travelling for twenty-four hours already, and I have fifteen more ahead of me. This is my way of saying, "Bring it on."

More than I am saying "bring it on," I am saying I need sleep. It always seems the first thing to go when travelling; be it the functional minimum I procured before leaving Tulsa or the few winks from Oklahoma City to Chicago or the two hours I pieced together from Boston to Zurich. I am a weary man, but I'm almost there.

The reading list for the day so far: Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. True, Didion's thoughts on mortality and bereavement are weighty–perhaps too weighty for morning flights from Oklahoma to Chicago then on to Boston. Despite their context, her words struck me in an enabling way. Her ability to weave together psychologies of grief, medicinal terminologies, personal reflections and vulnerability–eye-popping sincerity–makes me feel like I too can write.

Needless to say, I recommend it.

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