Mastery at 106 Hours

After the post where I’d counted 66 hours of cumulative bus travel on the trip in the first 3 weeks, I decided to make some serious changes in order to preserve my sanity (or whatever amount of it I still have left, which depends on who you ask.)

Throughout my life, I’ve always avoided reading in the car, despite being an avid reader. I tried it a few times when I was younger, only to suddenly feel like my last meal and all the meals I’d eaten in the past lunar cycle were knocking on my esophagus in mass protest and demanding out. I’d get pale, clammy, and thoroughly nauseated. Half an hour of uncomfortable burping later, some semblance of normalcy might return. I therefore abandoned this pursuit of wheel-bound literacy, and this policy has served my stomach and I well over the years.

No longer. Things had to change. I’d been spending way too much time staring vacantly out of bus windows being totally unproductive. I resolved, therefore, to start reading on the bus. Bus rides may be the bane of travel, but reading is fun, and I figured the two would quite nicely cancel each other out, with perhaps a little edge to the reading, depending on the book.

I admit, it took some training. The first few times I tried it, I’d have to stop after 20 minutes, fix my eyes on a stable spot in the landscape ahead, and breathe deeply for several minutes lest I horrify my neighbor with a visual repatriation of my last meal. But slowly, persistently, the length of time I could read before I had to pull an emergency breathing maneuver got longer and longer. Discipline, practice.

I’ve piled on an additional 40 hours of bus travel since those first 66, for a grand total of 106 hours, putting my reading plan into practice the whole way.

Yesterday, I achieved what I consider Jedi-level bus reading status, and this is how I know.

The four-hour bus ride through the mountains was exceptionally rough. Our driver, a reincarnated kamikaze pilot, gunned the bus through weaving roads, ups and downs, hairpin turns, steep switchbacks, and potholed, crater-ridden sections like he was training for the rally car championship. And, as far as I could tell, the bus had no suspension (or it broke or went on strike after the first couple of miles).

About half an hour into the ride, the first passenger vomited. Deep, loud retching into a plastic bag. Truly, this man was reaching all the way into his intestines for material. Not long after, another passenger lost it. More sounds (and smells) of regurgitative agony. Then a kid joined the chorus. A little higher pitch, to be sure, but unmistakable nonetheless. A few other ashen-faced passengers looked on the edge.

Yet despite all this, I kept reading. Jedi-level, I tell you.