It occurred to me a few nights ago to look through my list of distractions – the things I began to write down in November as part of my plan for how I would keep body, mind and soul together for the first few weeks or months of the Present Unpleasantness. I had a lot of things written down, but the ones of which I have so far availed myself are: the British quiz series QI, Roger Ekirch’s timeless At Day’s Close: Night In Times Past which I re-read every January as it is, some assorted Norwegian slow TV on Netflix, Pete Brown’s aforementioned books about the history and culture of strong drink, another rediscovered book about journeys on foot, some Rick Steves episodes, and of course several episodes of California’s Gold.
The thing that struck me in considering these is that they’re all real. Most of them are from other places, some involve other times, but they are all depictions and accounts and presentations of real things that actually exist or actually transpired. My retreat, such as it is, hasn’t been into the completely fictional, but into the embrace of a wider world that actually exists and actually happened (or is actually happening, in some few cases). Other things I have queued up are Stephen Fry in America, both the original and newer versions of Cosmos, the last DVD of Connections which I haven’t finished yet, and a couple of actual paper books which are historical in nature. Only the newest season of Sherlock is anything other than factual.
I think in times like this, when everything seems to be going to shit, there’s greater comfort for me in knowing that these places and people and things were and are real. You could wish yourself away to Hogwarts, maybe, or Yavin IV, but when you wake up in the morning you’ll still be here and they’ll still be fictional. Once I had a bit to reflect on this, I realized that one of the things that gives me comfort from all those things is that they are real, and they exist, and the chaos around me isn’t the entirety of the world. There’s a train plying the route from Bergen to Oslo. There are bikes by the canal in Amsterdam. There was a time when the normal human sleep pattern meant waking from first sleep to sit up or stand up or be awake for an hour before going back to bed, as a matter of normal course. Beer preference in brand and amount in Australia is still largely regionalized and based on where you live.
There is a great big world out there. It’s not all destroyed. It’s not all toxic. It’s as authentic as the one in front of your face, and it’s as good a place to recover and gather your strength as I’ve found. The only problem is how badly I want to go there.