He removed his coat, stood still for a moment, looked around, raised his arms and stretched back, looked to and fro again, and then just stood. I was beginning to feel slightly like a voyeur, so I put my head down and walked on. But I couldn't get that solitary figure out of my mind. As I walked I thought of those relatively rare times when I've traveled, alone, for business. Today's travel can be enervating and disorienting.
Air travel is a challenge, leading to anxiety about making connections and keeping to schedules.
I imagined the scramble for a taxi, the rush of a meeting, even how tough that solitary figure found it just to get a room in Manhattan on an early December weeknight. All of this connected with the stories I've heard from friends who do this often. You can see why you go from place to place. You score a few times and you feel really good. Of course, you usually have just one piece of the puzzle, and after a lot of it, lots of cities, lots of hotel rooms that look the same, lots of the oxymoron thing called airplane food, you wake up one day and you're not sure where you are.