Friendly Fatigue

We were in the midst of the slow but dramatic transition from morning to afternoon in the rich, Green Revolution plains of northwest India. Sleeper class, bucking the trend, was remarkably uninhabited. So I was sprawled, reveling in the joy of a barefoot train ride. The beauty of sleeper class is its open windows. As the day blossomed, as deep mist sharpened into a pilgrim’s midmorning sun, I found solace on my stomach, head rested on bunched up scarves, squinty eyes gazing out into the Punjabi fields of wheat and mustard. The onset of a friendly fatigue.

Friendly not only because it was sewn out of eternal-feeling threads of interconnectedness, basking in the sun and admiring its partner the soil at the same time. Friendly also because of intense familiarity. I’d known that sprawled out contentment before. On pre-teen summer days after hours of swimming and eating grilled cheeses at the neighborhood pool, when the bonus room’s couch felt like a cloud and Boy Meets World like the Gospel. Or on eight-hour July road trips to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents, when the rolling Virginia countryside used to rock me into a brooding sleep. Or during a post-cross country meet endorphin high, when, upon removing sweaty socks and rediscovering the space between my pruny toes, October breeze was ticklish.

Travel is alluring because of the chance for exoticism. Nothing is sexier than to imagine sights and sounds and smells, even emotions, different than any we’ve ever seen. But I find that the most magical moments of traveling are those of crystalline familiarity, a kind of soothing déjà vu. They are transcendental moments, above exoticism and allure, and beyond homesickness. They not only connect disparate places of the world, but also disparate places of the heart.