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It always feels as if I have woken up in Oz. I arrive in the other country and feel as if I am living in a dream, or maybe, more accurately, a more vivid reality. I notice the specific glint of the sunlight, the colors more vibrant, the sounds and smells and texture of the place. I liken it to the rubbery feeling you get when you finish a deep massage, or perhaps the release at the end of a hearty hot yoga class, or maybe even the cheer that sets in after the first few sips of wine on Friday night, as the mundane details of life slip away and for a few shining moments anything seems possible.
I suppose the formula is simple really. Spend 48 hours packing up 5 people and their assorted special things, drive for several hours to an airport, spend 6 hours on an international flight with 3 small children. The resulting combination of fatigue, dehydration, indigestion, and excitement will result in the inability, if only for a short time, to process the trip you have just made and the world you now find yourself in. The inability to think. And that is when the fun begins.
Because for a few hours you are able to live in a time out of time. You forget that there are rules that you need to follow, and that there are customs that you are supposed to adhere to. All you can absorb is the beauty of the mottled green mountains, the din of salsa music that pours from doorways effervescent with the scent of roast chicken, and the intensity of flavor in a ripe papaya.
And then slowly, in ways both sad and laughable, the rules of the country you are in seep into the way that you see yourself. You know that you can’t wear your gold necklace into the city. You remember that if you want to be considered as something other than an ugly American, you need to take a shower and put on fancy shoes and lipstick to go the the grocery store. You relax into the reality that no one cares if you are actually on time. And you reflexively translate everything that you need into another language.
Then you are back. You live that life until it is time to change cultures again.
I meditate for 45 minutes every morning. What began as an attempt at relaxation for a stressed-out mom, I now understand as a desperate attempt to find those few moments of time out of time. Because, for me, meditation gives me the same gift as changing cultures. I seek a few minutes, even seconds, of time when I do not need to adhere to any set of rules, even those in my head. When I can give up the ability to think and for a few shining moments, anything does seem possible.