Soul Lag

(/sōl/ /laɡ/)

The moment before landing, as we find ourselves longing for what we’ve left.

I’ve been meaning to write this piece for years. I think of it after every flight I take. But then I  slip back into the buzz of work and daily life, get lost in the melee of noisy, competing  priorities, and I set the idea aside again until the next flight lands. 

We’re all familiar with jet lag, but what about soul lag —the time it takes to land from the  arms of one person, place or moment you love —til you can find yourself securely rooted in  the next? The moment your hands release one trapeze and before you catch the next one,  as you hang for a moment suspended in mid-air? Jet lag’s easily solved with time, sleep (or  even my fancy new-age light goggles) but I find that well into my fourth decade of life, I’m still seeking support for soul lag. 

I wonder if whether, during the days of travel by horseback, boat, dogsled, or in wagon  trains with their communities, humans struggled with this same combined sense of feeling  both displaced, and root-bound. I like to think that they didn’t, and a part of me longs for  those bygone days, but I imagine that they felt it to some degree too, as I’m starting to think  that soul lag is integral to the human experience. Let’s explore it, shall we? 

I am lucky to have had a peaceful, sweet, nourishing, and restful holiday season connecting with people I love. I hardly looked at my phone. And I didn’t even pack my computer! 

Then, after a blissful two weeks, I hopped onto my return flight, zoomed back over two time zones at 40,000 feet, gained 3 hours, and lost an entire day. Because, as the plane’s wheels returned to the runway at my destination, I was jolted into a different province, a new place,  another part of my life. Still in parallel with those I’ve just left, but now too far to run to them for a hug, have them over for tea, or share a meal. I can reach out to my nieces, whom I  tucked into bed less than 24 hours ago, only through a screen now. It’s not the same as  sitting side by side in front of the fire. And it terrifies me. I spent the following day  immobilized. 

I recognize that may sound dramatic (I have been known to lean in that direction), but I’m  speaking about the state of my nervous system. When I woke Saturday morning, my heart  was pounding with what I recognized as fear: “I’m not ok, I’m not ok”. The sudden transition from the warm nest of loved ones and tea time to a cold house, an empty fridge, my waiting  inbox, and my 12-month calendar had triggered a safety warning. While my mind knows  that I am, in fact, ok, it took the whole day to remind my body of the same. I lit candle in the  morning, read a favourite book of poetry, took a walk through the woods to the lake,  luxuriated in a long shower, spent more time outside, had dinner with friends, and finally began to settle back down to the pace at which my soul can safely travel. And with that, my  soul rejoined my body back here in British Columbia. 

I feel even the most minor change as a shock to my system. Transitions take me more time  than most. From summer to fall, from fall to winter, from winter to spring. From Sunday  evening to Monday morning. From the end of one thing, to the start of the next. The space  between a hello and a goodbye…I’ve long been afraid of limbo; of the in-betweens. At best,  they fill me with trepidation and nostalgia, at worst, I start to panic, feeling the way I  imagine a fawn must feel when she’s been separated from the herd. My heart starts to race  and I begin desperately looking for something that will make me feel okay again. 

The same thing happened after my Grand Canyon trip years ago. I spent 16 days time travelling deeper and ever deeper into the gorgeous red chasm carved into the earth by  history and the flow of the Colorado River. I lost time. Or I gained time. Or I found ‘deep  time’, as one of my great heroes Joanna Macy would say. We had no phones, just our  journals, our musical instruments, our collective meals, one another, and sleeping under the stars. We wiggled our toes in the sand. My shoulders dropped. I exhaled.  

When I returned from that journey deep into time, I couldn’t even read the font on my phone. My eyes had adjusted to scanning the horizon line, to starlight, and to sunrises. I  longed for the connection I’d felt and left. For acoustic music reverberating off canyon walls, for cactus flowers in bloom, for a hug. 

Then soul lag strikes. It happens almost every time. The longer and more connected the trip, the more challenging the return. I try to bring the red sand of the Grand Canyon forward with me, or keep the river’s songs on my lips, or continue to rise with the sun, and I succeed  for a little bit…And then, after a day or so, I’m back in motion again, going, doing, rushing to scratch items from my list as ever more continue to appear. I feel my heart slowly sink as  the to-dos demand that I transition from one way of being to another. And I’m lost, pulled  back into the hustle, as life swirls around me. 

I know I’m not the only one who’s felt this way after a trip, or a particularly sweet holiday. We so often push through and shrug this feeling of, saying, “back to reality”! But I question  which is the reality: the time paddling the Colorado River, sleeping with the rhythm of the  sun and the stars? The moments with my nieces as they giggle over a new story under the  covers? Or my credit card bills, my waiting inbox, and the isolated boxes we live in that  we’ve been sold are the American Dream? I know there’s a difference between holiday time  and daily routines, and I know that not every day can (nor should) be Christmas Day, but to  me, there’s something far more aligned in sharing meals, paddling in unison, and lying  down as the sun sets in the evening, than the internalized and societal demand for productivity, or the exhausted after-shock of huddling around our blue screens in our separate spaces late at night.

So, no, it isn’t just jet lag. It’s soul lag, culture shock, the jarring trade-oP of one way of being for another. And each time it happens, I vow to remember what I know to be true around the fire with my family, what I understand in the depths of the canyon, and what my soul feels over tea: that moments of connection are what matter to me. That going slow and talking with a friend means more to me than any number of followers on social media ever could. That loving, shared, collective experiences help remind me that I belong, and thus help me to feel safe in this big, and at times scary, overwhelming world of ours. That poetry will always move me more than anything on my to-do list. That the allyship of others helps keep me close to my important places. And that when I do feel alone, lost in transition, or scared, I can reach out my hand to someone else, because it’s always, always better together.