Turbulence

“You can spend an entire day moving and still feel like you have absolutely no idea where you are going.”

I've been travelling a lot and I think I'm starting to realise how much time there is to think when you are constantly going somewhere. It sounds like it should be the opposite because there is always something happening, trains, airports, taxis, people, bags, boarding passes and all that shit, and of course somewhere else you are supposed to be. But then there are these strange gaps in between where there is absolutely nothing you can do except sit there with yourself.

I think those gaps are getting to me a bit.

There was a time prior when I felt like I knew where everything was going. Not necessarily that everything was perfect, but there was a sense of being in control of it. I knew what I was doing and what came next and how everything fitted together. But this is different. Work is taking me in one direction, life outside is pulling me in another, there is money, responsibility, expectation, and all the other things that sit quietly in the background until you give them too much attention, and somewhere in the middle of all of it I have started to feel like I don't really know what I am supposed to be doing anymore.

I am still doing everything, still functioning on the surface, which is probably why it's so difficult to explain. I'm not falling apart, no, that would be too dramatic and doesn't feel honest. I'm just moving through things without really feeling like I'm choosing the direction. Going with the flow and trusting the process - if it is a process.

I remember being underground in London, travelling across from Paddington towards Liverpool Street, and watching everyone getting on and off at the different stations. I had nowhere particularly interesting to be in that moment, I was just travelling, and there was something about watching all these people change trains and disappear down tunnels and come back out somewhere else that made me think about how strange it is that you can spend an entire day moving and still feel like you have absolutely no idea where you are going. Just in autopilot.

Everyone else seemed to know. Or at least they looked like they knew. Maybe they were also feeling like this. As I watched, they would get off the train and walk with purpose while I was checking the signs again even though I'd already checked them.

Perhaps that is where the idea starts. Just a feeling that keeps following me around, and where I feel that music will help me build an awareness of it, or at least do something with the awareness.

Even getting to the airport has become this ridiculous exercise in checking things. It's so frustrating, I convince myself that I have forgotten my passport even though I have checked it minutes earlier and can feel it in the front pocket of my bag. Then I think about the laptop and suddenly I'm certain I've left it in the hotel, despite the fact that it's sitting in the bag next to me. I know I have everything, but my fucking brain keeps going back to it anyway. Check again. Make sure. Check again. Repeat, repeat. It isn't really fear, more like I can't quite trust that things are where I have left them, even when I know they are. Those thoughts only ever arrive when I am left mentally unattended. Like a child.

It's funny, as a parent we spend all our time trying to remember stuff and taking the responsibility for others, yet when left unattended I forget all my own shit. It has its perks being left alone, in so much as you become hyper aware of the responsibility which can in itself be overwhelming. But when I'm with other people, I relax more because I feel I have that support that makes me feel I can share the responsibility. Until of course you put it to the test and realise the other adults you are with are just like you taking care and worrying about their own stuff and don't give two shits about your stuff. The amount of times I have left bags, coats, and other stuff because I have assumed others will take care of it. It's amazing with the amount of travel I do, how I have actually not totally lost my things. I guess I have been lucky, which feels like a silver lining.

I think in this case I'm tired. Not just physically tired, although I am definitely that too, but more tired from having so many things running around in my head at the same time and not really having anywhere to put them. Travelling gives them room to come up because when you're away there is no normal routine to hide behind. You finish work and suddenly you're in a hotel room on your own, or sitting in an airport, or looking out of a window somewhere you don't know, and the things you've managed not to think about all day seem to find you again.

The flight home is strange because I am actually looking forward to it and anxious about it at the same time. I miss home. I want to get back, but I also know that some of the things I have pushed to the side while I'm away working are going to be there when I get back, waiting for me.

Nothing is solved by being away, life as it is has just been put on hold for a few days in a way. Distractions are great for making space and processing things, though not always consciously knowing it at the time. Time is a healer as they say, and stepping out of something briefly can be all you need to gather yourself together and step back in with a new perspective or maybe even an energy that allows you to move with it differently. Other times, it can be a massive shock to the system and in stepping away from it actually does the opposite for you.

I'm travelling alone this time as well, which makes it feel longer somehow. I love my own company, but I am learning that I also love connection and being with people. Not just to carry my bags and remind me where to be, but because interactions can just make things feel like there's purpose in your actions. Usually there is someone beside you, even if you aren't talking, and there is something comforting about having another person there when you're somewhere unfamiliar. Someone else who might notice that you've forgotten something, or tell you that you're being stupid because obviously the passport is in your bag. This time there is just me, my bag and a few hours to fill.

Once I get on the plane and find my seat, after reading the boarding pass hundreds of times, checking that number is the number it was when you last looked at it. I do that thing where you put everything away and then immediately get it all back out again. Then you see someone else doing exactly that and I sit there silently judging them and wishing they would just sit the fuck down.

Headphones on. Music on. Looking out of the window. Trying to get comfortable even though I'm not really uncomfortable, just fidgety and restless. There is nothing wrong with the flight. It's on time, which feels like a small victory. Everything is actually fine, which somehow makes it easier to notice that I'm not.

So, after take off, the laptop is out and I start pulling some tracks out to find a sound and rhythm that sounds like what I'm feeling in that moment. It's trial and error, as it always is. It's listening for something - melodic, rhythmic, moving, changing etc. I don't remember there being some big moment where I decide what it's going to be or where it's going to go or even how long it's going to be.

I just start looking for sounds that feel like they might settle something down or as a minimum personify and embody the restless feeling. The beginning is restless because I am restless. It jumps around a bit and doesn't seem particularly interested in settling anywhere, which makes sense because neither am I. So I let it guide me to a place that feels right.

And somewhere in there I start thinking about the Underground again, and what is likely ahead of me when I land. Paddington. A few stops. Change here. Walk there. Another train. Another platform. Then somewhere else. Then back home.

It starts to feel like the mix is doing the same thing. Moving without really knowing where it is going, but continuing anyway and trusting that you'll get where you need to be eventually. I like that about it. There is something honest about not forcing it into a destination. I don't want to make something that suddenly becomes calm and reassuring just because that would make a better story or even necessarily resolve the mix into a place of peace and contentment. I'm not suddenly calm. I'm still thinking about things. I still don't know what comes next. I'm still checking my bag and seeing if I have my fucking passport.

Listening back, there is a point where something begins to change. I don't really notice it while I'm making it. The sounds become a little more open, a little more uplifting, and the movement that feels frantic at the beginning starts to feel more like actual movement. Less like being pushed around by everything and more like going somewhere, even if I can't tell you exactly where.

I think that is probably the closest I get to an answer at the time. Not that I'm looking for one. Not even that everything is going to be alright. I don't know that it is, but I don't think it isn't either. More that I don't need to know yet.

There is something quite comforting about being on a plane when you have spent the day worrying about things you can't control. Once you're up there, there is very little left for you to do. You sit in your seat and watch the world disappear underneath you. The roads get smaller and the buildings become little blocks and eventually you can't really see any of the things that seemed so important when you were standing in the middle of them.

I remember looking out and thinking about home, and how much I wanted to see it again, back with my brood, back with my people. Even knowing that some of the same things I have been trying not to think about necessarily are waiting for me. I suppose I have been hoping for some kind of certainty, some indication of what I should be doing next, but I don't get one.

Perhaps I'm not supposed to. Maybe this is just one of those periods where you don't get to know what the next chapter is until you're actually in it.

For now there is just the journey, the music in my ears, the plane moving through the dark, and the strange feeling that although I still don't really know where I'm going metaphorically, at least I'm moving.

For now, when I find myself spiraling with these thoughts, the constant checking, and double checking, I put this on, turn it up and try to tune in to the feeling. Sitting with the different parts of me, and trying to remember the process of moving.

I think sometimes that's all you get.

And sometimes, eventually, perhaps it's enough.