# 33 A Cocoon of Quiet

The River Clyde

COCOONED BY QUIET

I love traveling", a friend said, "except for the actual travel". I think he meant the inconveniences of long distance transport, of which I can list plenty - Cramped seats, and even more cramped toilets, the indignity of security checks and immigration queues, the odd timings of departures and arrivals, the changes in time zone that induce zombie-like behaviour, the airline food. Above all, other people, shifting in their seats, kneeing you in the back, silently wrestling for arm-rest space.

And yet, I love the romance of airports, magical constructs of concrete and glass, with a hundred openings to the world, each opening and closing like the gates of an old-fashioned movie projector, each frame offering a new image, new possibilities: now Tbilisi, with its promise of dance and wine, Reykjavik and the brooding beauty of Arctic fjords, the volcanic rocks and punishing sun of Tenerife. Click, click, click, the electronic unspooling of signboards in airport concourses, digital signifiers of the silver darts launched every two minutes. Silent through the sound-proofing of the airport lounge, they wait, patient at the turn, for the buzz of Air Traffic Control to resolve into a single command - "Clear for take-off". 

Inside, passengers are pushed back into their seats, as engines whine against gravity, climb into thinner air, where they level off into a dull drone, and the cabin settles into the dull routine of announcements and food service.  On shorter flights, the clamour scarcely ceases, but this week I found myself on a long flight to London, en route to Glasgow. Longer than normal, to avoid Russian airspace. An hour out of Delhi, the window shades were dimmed, the cabin staff retreated into the galleys, and my neighbour dived into his computer, scrubbing cells and inserting new figures into a spreadsheet.

I pushed deeper into my seat, glanced at the cover of my only book, then shut my eyes, savouring the soundscape. The huge, unceasing whoosh of massive jet engines, the softer flows of cabin air. No resemblance to silence, yet in their unchanging pitch and pressure, a constancy that seemed to bring an inner peace. After all those years, I recalled what I had told my friend, he who loved to travel, "Actually, I love those long flights, that sense of being in a cocoon."

On this day, the cocoon seemed just that little bit more comforting, that much more precious, after nearly 3 years of COVID restrictions. For the next 8 hours, I would float in this bubble - no Zoom calls to attend, no mails to answer, not even a training session at the pool. For the time being, the flight entertainment system didn't entice me, and I could feel my being quieten into something that approached contentment. 

I turn 66 today, and I have nothing to prove to the world, no unfinished agenda. Why shouldn't I feel like this every day, bathed in a soft glow of quiet? Not stop doing, but do it from a place of quiet? I try to create that place every Sunday morning, when I write this newsletter, but I know I'm always fighting the demons of distraction. The biggest demon is the pace of social media, my need to know from minute to minute what's happening in the world around me. To be honest with myself, I must call it an addiction. 

In our times of polarisation and hatred, it almost feels like a responsibility, to know what's happening in the world, but there's a bigger problem here, this feeling of being on call - someone just texted me, need to answer; the Nifty just dropped 50 points, how do I respond; two new start-up pitches landed in my inbox, must let the founders know what I think.

And then, the infinite indulgence of my curiosity - the temperature in Chicago, where my son lives; travel time from Vienna to Bratislava, where we fly next week; who won Stage 7 in the Tour de France. I can spend hours navigating rabbit holes of curiosity and instant data gratification, and it is hugely satisfying.

But that day last week, droning over the Black Sea (yes, by now, I was navigating the Interactive Flight Path channel), I knew that the satisfaction comes with a buzz, a constant itch for more data, more adrenalin, more dopamine from the social media likes, the digital hearts that are mere bytes.

This Sunday, after a gorgeous run along the Clyde in Glasgow, I gift myself the gifts of more quiet, of gentle bubbles of content, and of course, of long flights into places of beauty.