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I stumbled upon silence.

I was supposed to be in Cartagena, Colombia, today, speaking at the mid-year meeting of the InterAmerican Press Association. I was supposed to leave on Friday, but a snow and ice storm in the northeast caused many flight cancellations. First my flight from Dulles airport was cancelled; I got standby status on another flight out of Reagan-National airport, but then it was cancelled. I couldn’t get a seat to Miami until Sunday at the earliest. So, that was it. The trip was over.
I went home and enjoyed a “bonus” weekend with my family. Jenny and the boys were thrilled the trip was cancelled - and so was I.

Technorati Tags: conferences, worklifebalance

I was looking forward to my first trip to South America; a weekend at a Caribbean beach resort sounded nice too; but it was going to be a difficult and short trip. First, a night in Miami, then on to Bogota and a connection to Cartagena. Two nights there, then back through Bogota to another night in Miami, then back home the next morning.

Travel, for me, is difficult under the best of circumstances. It stresses me - physically and emotionally.

Under the worst of circumestances it’s:

• To a country Americans (and others) are urged to avoid because it’s so dangerous
• A weekend. I don’t like leaving home for work - ever. I really resent work trips that take me away from home on the weekend. I generally don’t do them. This was an exception because the networking seemed especially worthwhile, and it’s an organization that interests me.

In retrospect: what was I thinking to begin with? This was a trip I shouldn’t have been making to begin with.

I couldn’t help but feel that Friday’s icy weather was more than coincidence.

I felt a weight had been lifted. My bed was especially comfortable, and I was grateful for every moment in it. It was a cold weekend, we didn’t do much - a lazy, domestic weekend spent mostly at home. We shopped for groceries, took a cold walk around the lake. Eli worked on his homework; Jeremy built Bionicles.

And now, Monday, an additional benefit: I have no appointments or phone calls scheduled until Wednesday. I’m supposed to be away.

Revelation: I need to schedule more days like this, more days when I can think and write, or scribble, sketch or read. I need days like this so I can get something done. Days filled with meetings, calls and “To Do” lists achieve just the oppsite: they may be filled with work, but I accomplish so little.

I need to be more deliberate in how I live my life - even my work life.

Here’s the paradox: I’m supposed to be clever about this connected society of ours, this world wrapped in a cloak of digital mesh that links us continuously to each other. The mesh is hyperactive. It crackles with signal, with relentless tiny shocks. I can take it off, but then what? I am afraid. Can I get by without it? Who am I without it? I am the cloak thinker. What is a cloak thinker without the cloak? Naked? Detached? Nothing?

Without it - I feel the air. Without the incessant pinpricks of data - of ideas, conversations, videos, pompous know-it-alls, reports, rebuttals, requests - my heart beats slower.

Without the noise - I hear springtime taking shape around me.

I need days like this. The cloak - the network - is not everything.