On our way. . .

It is already the 7th of January.  Next Friday at this time, we will be (almost) on a plane to Lake Tahoe.  We will have gotten up in the thick darkness, and loaded our protesting selves into the car.  We will have joined other lemmings traveling I-85 South, all of whom will know it would be better to be in bed, asleep, rather than whatever poor excuse finds them more or less in control of  a several thousand pound machine, in the dark.  No one’s biorhythms cooperate with such a schedule.  The body simply knows better.
Nonetheless, there will be a brief exhilaration at the earlier than usual action; a public destination requiring clothes, a clear goal powered by earlier than usual caffeine.  We will suddenly realize ourselves among the blessed, these other creatures who also know how to take advantage of these hidden resources, these hours when we are usually in bed.  What have we been thinking?  What a gold mine!  This will last several hours actually, kept aloft by the novelty of security screening, then sitting next to strangers, rising into the sky at dawn, having more strangers bring us bad coffee.  But before we fall from the sky, it will begin to dissipate.  These artisanal selves, these specially-prepared selves will begin to deflate into the real thing. The self that didn’t really want to get up so early, that didn’t get enough sleep, that doesn’t like being dragged out of a warm kitchen and onto a dark bleak Interstate to smile at equally sleep-deprived strangers in the middle of the night, that now overly fatigued, overly caffeinated, low blood-sugared, cranky self will take its place.  By the time the plane lands in Reno, Nevada, that self will be the one negotiating the rental car, dealing with whether the other two flights we are meeting are on time, the ones carrying the skiing nephews.  It will be that self that chats with them on the final leg of the trip to Lake Tahoe, to try to find the house, to meet more strangers, to allocate bedrooms and think groceries for dinner and is there going to be an effort at night skiing on Friday.  Already not good.  Already requiring more than is available.  Better take extra naps every day until then.  All in the name of peace on Earth, good will toward. . . well, everything. . .