grounded

Perhaps there's a technical word for the feeling one gets when too much of a body's recent movement has been mechanical. That somewhat queasy, rocking feeling you get lying in bed following 15 hours of rail-riding; that lighter-than-air, free-fall effect when a plane stumbles over "unexpected" turbulence (because if it was expected, the pilot would avoid it, right?) or claws its way through a take-off while your ears make their way to the back of your head, only to right themselves after a 32,000-foot plummet from heaven to tarmac.

Over the past four weeks I've chalked up some 3,000+ kilometers through four (or five?) different countries, and it just all seems too easy. As super-cool as the TGV can be dashing through thunderstorms at 400kph, it's disorienting, in a sense, to be here and then be there, so quickly. (It might be that the scale of my childhood in California has scrambled my ability to adapt to Europe; 120km from Berlin is another country; 120km from San Francisco is, er, San Jose.)

And so I've grounded myself for a bit. Returned and put on my pj's and sat and read Harry Potter for 24 hours, because, well, that's a good way to ground. While I've always considered myself more gypsy than nester, it is certainly nice to be back home.