{"id":774,"date":"2012-03-29T00:09:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T04:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/?p=774"},"modified":"2021-01-09T14:03:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T19:03:18","slug":"the-joys-of-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/the-joys-of-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joys of Flying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sarcasm? Not at all.<\/p>\n<p>You could probably say I travel more than the average person (although, honestly, not as much as I&#8217;d like to). One summer not too long ago, I was home only two weekends from the beginning of May to the end of August. I&#8217;ve had my luggage lost. I&#8217;ve sat by my share of crying kids. I&#8217;ve missed connections and encountered customer service agents with no concept of service. I&#8217;ve certainly experienced the hassles and inconveniences that plague modern air travel, but I&#8217;ve realized that, despite them all, I actually look forward to flying.<\/p>\n<p>In the quest to balance work, grad school, freelance assignments, and the rest of my life, time has become the one thing I continually crave. Sure, it&#8217;s not always easy to get comfortable in a 17-by-32-inch space, but when else do I have the freedom to delve into a book for more than an hour at a time? When else do I have permission to people watch without guilt or the license to become completely lost in thought? When else am I actually required to turn off my iPhone and take a break from the neverending flood of emails and the constant current of social media?<\/p>\n<p>I have a love of long-form journalism, and while waiting for a recent flight to Indianapolis, I sat in the airport and finished an article I had been digesting in small bites over the past week as I ate my morning cereal or bounced along on the Metro into D.C. It was wonderful to reach the end in one sitting. Then, on the plane, I became engrossed in <em>A Year in Provence<\/em>, a book I&#8217;d been trying to dive into for an entire month but hadn&#8217;t been able to concentrate on for more than two pages at a time. I ordered a glass of wine and lost myself in descriptions of life in rural France. When we landed, I felt refreshed.<\/p>\n<p>Unencumbered by the real world on the ground, the time in transit can be a mini escape. And that&#8217;s where I find joy in flying.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flight-fun.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-778\" title=\"flight fun\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flight-fun-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flight-fun-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flight-fun-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flight-fun.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarcasm? Not at all. You could probably say I travel more than the average person (although, honestly, not as much as I&#8217;d like to). One summer not too long ago, I was home only two weekends from the beginning of May to the end of August. I&#8217;ve had my luggage lost. I&#8217;ve sat by my share of crying kids. I&#8217;ve missed connections and encountered customer service agents with no concept of service. I&#8217;ve certainly experienced the hassles and inconveniences that plague modern air travel, but I&#8217;ve realized that, despite them all, I actually look forward to flying. In the quest to balance work, grad school, freelance assignments, and the rest of my life, time has become the one thing I continually crave. Sure, it&#8217;s not always easy to get comfortable in a 17-by-32-inch space, but when else do I have the freedom to delve into a book for more than an hour at a time? When else do I have permission to people watch without guilt or the license to become completely lost in thought? When else am I actually required to turn off my iPhone and take a break from the neverending flood of emails and the constant current of social media? I have a love of long-form journalism, and while waiting for a recent flight to Indianapolis, I sat in the airport and finished an article I had been digesting in small bites over the past week as I ate my morning cereal or bounced along on the Metro into D.C. It was wonderful to reach the end in one sitting. Then, on the plane, I became engrossed in A Year in Provence, a book I&#8217;d been trying to dive into for an entire month but hadn&#8217;t been able to concentrate on for more than two pages at a time. I ordered a glass of wine and lost myself in descriptions of life in rural France. When we landed, I felt refreshed. Unencumbered by the real world on the ground, the time in transit can be a mini escape. And that&#8217;s where I find joy in flying. &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[111,112],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-a-year-in-provence","tag-air-travel"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1485,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisalance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}