We’re on the plane; it is a full flight, and priority boarding is our friend. While TSA pre-check works wonders for me, Caroline dealt with the slow-motion line, taking her 20 minutes to get through security compared to my 30 seconds. Guess what we’ll be applying for in December.

In little more than 2.5 hours, we’ll be touching down in Eugene, Oregon, and until then, I’ll either be here with my pen falling on paper or I’ll crack open Bruno Latour’s After Lockdown – A Metamorphosis, his last book before passing away earlier this year.

Not sure about this book as it’s not a happy, fun read, not that one should expect that with Latour, but this claustrophobic realization that no matter where we go, we are always within. There is no way to externalize ourselves, and so in that respect, we are like a termite in its mound or Gregor Sansa becoming an insect in Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

Intuitively, I’ve always known this (or I should have), but when I go somewhere, as we are doing this evening, I’m hoping that being outside of my routine, I’ll discover something out there that will unlock some intrinsic value waiting to be uncovered within me. When I read, I wish that the words conceived outside of myself will bring me illumination through insights gleaned by others, but if the text read by me has no ability to find context, I may as well have looked at characters I cannot decipher, like the termite. I must look at the universe around me and try to make sense of what I’m capable of comprehending. A termite thrust into the sea cannot survive in a world that is too alien. Likewise, I cannot be thrust into someone else’s paradigm if I have nothing tethering me to their reality.

Good thing I only have 111 pages to go with a mere hour to continue reading. Meanwhile, Caroline is knitting while listening to an ebook, certainly a lot more meditative and probably a lot less demanding. Should Latour grow too heavy, I also brought along After Finitude – An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency by Quentin Meillassoux. Only now am I recognizing that both titles are dealing with something that “comes after.” Then, I think this may have been subconsciously deliberate as I prepare for where my life goes after I turn 60 next year.

I’m experiencing one of those horrible moments in life when one realizes the vast ignorance they inhabit and how long it has taken to see what should have been obvious. Latour is describing how Gregor (from Kafka’s Metamorphosis) sees his family as being the other, their own kinds of insects who make horrible sounds in their respective dwellings. Gregor is becoming normalized to the reality of being an insect; his world makes sense, but the giant two-legged things are grotesque when it comes down to it. Well, this is how I often see the average person in my own life. As my fellow humans fail to explore curiosity, I see them devolving into absurd caricatures of what it means to be human.

A termite mound without termites is a hill of mud; termites define the mound. Humans make up earthly reality; without us, this is a sphere of water, dirt, and various plants and animals. We define the concept of people, cities, and culture, which means we also define haves and have-nots, addicts, and the rich and famous.

Only two hours into the flight, but it felt like we were flying to Europe. This is until the engines slow, and we feel the beginning of our descent. I’ve made it to page 27 with Latour and am at peace as I’m not bludgeoning myself at the moment. I hope to keep reading this over the next few days, as I can always appreciate a book that exposes my shortsighted stupidity.

We have arrived in Eugene and simultaneously inside Kafka’s Metamorphosis. At least that’s the view in the local Super Walmart at 10:00 p.m. This store is more a homeless shelter than a place to pick up the things we need for the next days. To characterize these unfortunate misfits as having emerged from a zombie apocalypse doesn’t feel too far-fetched or hostile as the tragedy that has befallen them leaves little other descriptive terms. They are Gregors becoming cockroaches. We get what we need, while the two kids in the store on a Thursday night didn’t score any cash after begging from us, and quickly, we just want to move to the exit. Not that the exit was any better, as with rain falling, the roof is an escape from the elements for the homeless population congregating here. Now we just have to hope that our car hasn’t been broken into.

After finding everything intact, we head for the motel without a lot of hope as our first impression of Eugene post-Covid is sobering. The Signature Inn checks all the boxes; it is awesome, really. Our room is clean, really clean; there are free snacks, water, and juice next to the TV we won’t use, and the bathroom is well equipped. We can be happy about this situation at the Signature Inn as this is where we’ll be staying for the last night at the end of our vacation.