People keep asking me how it feels to be back on the shore of the Thames after more than two weeks batting across America - some fourteen thousand miles on planes, not counting incidental car travel. I still don’t have a good answer. Plane travel is possibly the most peaceful thing I do, for some reason. It’s almost meditative. I have my security protocol down to a simple process. I thank everybody. Airline apps or computer kiosks speed everything along. Self-discipline. Walking and sitting. Observing the breath and calculating calorie expenditure. Thoughts pass away without perturbation. I understand airports as riverbanks, cut into the world to effect motion and transience. Hans Ibelings’ supermodern space.

I hadn’t been on a plane in a year. Hadn’t been in America in two. I’d forgotten what it had been like to be weightless, and how effortless travel becomes when I just relax into it and let it carry me along. It is the most absurd privilege, and the most insanely gorgeous technological gift. I am lucky beyond all measure to be able to do it, and to have it be the most peaceful thing.

This is a picture of me partway through the door and not knowing which timezone or city or hotel or day I’m in. I was starting to suffer fun sleep deprivation symptoms and was probably dying, but it was glorious.