Travel Slippers
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

I love flying. Last night, I had a five-hour flight, and after 2 hours, I had knitted my way through all the UFOs I brought with me, and I didn’t feel like starting something new, so I wrote up a few patterns on the laptop, and when the battery was exhausted, I went to sleep.

But there’s something about being on a plane which seems to help my thought process. I was knitting faster, thinking more clearly. I had good ideas for blog posts, which now, bleary-eyed, this morning, I can’t remember.

There are a few reasons why flight-time inspires so much creativity in me. The main one is the lack of distraction. There’s no part of your normal life you could deal with even if you wanted to–no phone, nothing to clean, and this time, since I was flying by myself, no one to take care of but myself. The other, I think, is the white noise. I was imagining last night that if airline makers wanted to, they could make planes quiter, but there’s an advantage to all that noise: you don’t hear anyone else’s conversation. I could barely hear the baby who was fussing at the front of the plane.

All this made me think that my perfect workspace would be a room without all the books, yarn and tools that decorate my current studio. It wouldn’t even have a computer. It would be empty save a few comfortable places to sit, a work table great lighting, plants, and probably a sound system. Any work I wanted to do in there, I’d bring in, and when finished, take it out again to store in a separate storage space.

I arrived in San Diego at about midnight pacific time, and yet, I still woke up at 6 a.m. I’ll work a bit this morning, maybe explore, and then I’m off to Cat Bordhi’s new sock architecture class. Whee!

p.s. The picture is my travel slippers that I got in LA at the Japanese $.98 store. They came with a little pouch to transport them in, and this is the first time I’ve gotten to use them. Perfect for protecting feet/socks from hotel-room floors.

On Travel