It is 2am on Wednesday November 21. I just woke up and decided to not fight getting back to sleep but instead enjoy posting. Concerning many things about India, I am a poor reporter. Maybe the one thing I am the world’s expert on is how Tom Pears is feeling and dealing with his return to the United States and New Hampshire.
On Monday November 19 I spent the morning in Mumbai and flew to Delhi at 4pm, landing about 6pm. I had to switch terminals, check in, etc but things went fairly smoothly. My flight was due to leave DEL at 23:45 and arrive in Newark at 4:45am. For the sake of a good story, I say that as Tuesday November started, 00:05 AM, I was in Delhi. I landed in Newark at 4:05 am, arrived in Boston at 7am and was home by 9am. Over lunch at my favorite Earth Eagle brewery in Portsmouth NH I was able to ask the bar tender to contemplate this: I was in Delhi this morning, Tuesday and now I am sitting here at noon Tuesday. It still seems like an example of Einstein relativity.
My daughter had offered to pick me up at Logan airport. I cautioned her to consider that it was morning rush hour and maybe it would make more sense to let the professional C&J transportation bus driver take me as far at Newburyport MA. Turns out she was headed up to NH for Thanksgiving anyway and it was wonderful for me to get my bag, which came un-customarily early for Logan, and just walk out to her waiting car.
I spent the morning getting started on my Hunny-Do list. Taking down the screens, taking in the porch furniture. And then off to Earth Eagle. After lunch I picked up dinner at the local Shaws, did a little more putzing around and then went to bed. I woke up once but fell right back to sleep until my daughter woke me at 5:45. I did not even hear the phone ring. Maybe I got 4 hours sleep.
I prepared dinner, told a few stories, read a book, attacked the email backlog, watched Jim Cramer Mad Money, had a couple beers and I think was in bed by 11pm. So now it is 3am here and 1:30 pm in India. Wonder how this is going to right itself! I have had about 6 hours of sleep in NH so far. I am going to have to get myself back on a schedule that allows me to function in NH pretty quickly. Turns out, unbeknownced to me, this is thanksgiving weekend. My mental image was that I was returning from India a little after the middle of November. I am not a big holiday person. I really do hate Christmas with some passion. The house is stuffed with Yard Waste. I am force to feel guilty that I do not jump at the chance to buy/install/decorate/dedecorate/despoze-of the tree. I have to face up to buying presents. The dilemma for me is not so much the money as spending the appropriate amount of time choosing the items. In this same vain, I put off buying presents in India, or more correctly it never occurred to me until the next to last day that I had better bring something home. My wife insightfully diagnosed this problem years and years ago as only-child-syndrome. I did go into a high end tourist store behind the Taj Mahll hotel in Mumbai Monday morning. I selected two scarves. Had to walk all the way back to my hotel and return as the shop keeper requested cash. I’m sure I paid way too much. And I am stuck with the dilemma of 2 gifts and 3 family members! I though about buying a third one but did not really have the ready cash in case emergencies arose in the next leaving hours. My solution at the moment is to fes up to this failing to wife Kim and ask her advise. The good news is that the house is full of Indian scarves so probably no one will be overly disappointed that they do not get one of the poor ones Dad brought home.
But I diverge!
The next major external hurtle is that I want to be at the door of the local Super Cuts when it opens at 9am. I needed a haircut before I went to India Thursday October 25th and now with the beard and hair in wild disarray I was lucky I was not mistaken for a mystic. I have decided that the best approach is to do the beard after the hair. That may be a mistake. I always have trouble getting the hair dresser to cut the hair short enough. Seeing the wild beard will just encourage them to leave me with more long wispy locks.
Again, how am I going to get myself to be sleeping during the night and be awake in the day? I did have a fair amount of trouble adjusting to India time. I kept waking up too early. But there, it was exciting to be out on my own before anyone was about. After I woke up, maybe about 3am? I would force myself to stay in bed until 4 but then get dressed and head out. I had my own room in both our first two hotels as daughter Elizabeth thought it would be better if she had a roommate in the wild new land. I would explore the neighborhood. Get to see all the guards sleeping in chairs on the road outside the hotels or apartment buildings. There was a wonderful park I could explore near our Haut Kaus Delhi neighborhood. I was able to find the Metro stop. The very first morning I was out on the streets in search of a bank ATM. The hotel concierge had directed me where to walk and Google maps was confirming the presence of a bank. It was a WILD introduction to the total chaos of Delhi streets.
Just now I was able to get back to sleep for a couple hours like 4-6am. The Snor machine (CPAP) says I got 5 hours sleep total last night so if you add that onto the 4 from yesterday afternoon, hopefully I can make it to 10pm tonight Wednesday.
It is now 4:30 am Thursday. A 2 1/2 hour improvement over yesterday! At least it is moving in the right direction! Yesterday the first event was the 9am haircut. Before that I took a shower, so the hair would be clean for cutting and trimmed the beard so that the hair stylist would have some idea that I am not a homeless man. Arrived at Super Cuts 10 minutes before it opened and was 4th in line!! When I returned to the house, younger daughter Elizabeth had returned with older daughter Emily and husband who had red-eyeed in from the coast. Hung out for a little while and then left for liquid lunch with old time friend. Great to share the wild things the 73 year old men can still do. Back home by 2:30 and then a struggle. This is the time in the day when I really want to go to sleep. I figured I would treat myself lightly yesterday and took the nap but today I was committed, if possible, to avoiding it. I had to do one stupid thing after another, Eat chocolate, walk around the block, write here. During this time I have no energy. I just want to curl up.
Finally we had dinner at 6:30. Eating seems to wake me up and reset the clock. I putzed for another hour, started watching TV with beers and nuts about 8 and finally found myself asleep in front of the TV at 10pm. The snor machine says I got over 6 hours sleep. Yesterday I went back to bed after 2 hours of playing on the computer. Hard to imagine I will repeat that. Probably just stay up and have breakfast.
Wife Kim reports that her return to NH time was about the same. Each day she was able to go to sleep a little later in the day but she did not have the problem of waking up at ungodly early hours.
We will see what happens next. Because today is Thanksgiving, there are a lot more constraints on my time than on a normal day in retirement!
Friday November 23. Got up at 6am. The snor machine says I slept for 9 hours. I really had to fight not to fall asleep at 2pm again but having Thanksgiving start at 3pm saved me from most of the pain. We will see what happens this afternoon and when is the “have to get out of bed” time tomorrow. I try to stay in bed as late as I can but after so much trying to fall back asleep, I just give up and rise.
Monday November 26. Did not write Saturday and Sunday. Things have gone pretty well in the wake up department. Sunday night I went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 7. About the same Saturday night. I still have the laptop set for India, it is 9am here but the computer says 7:pm. Guess it is time to switch over. I did not do a good job of recording my sleep disruption on the trip out. I certainly spent a lot of time forcing myself to lie in bed early in the morning and I got up a lot at 5am and walked around. I don’t remember a lot of trouble with falling asleep during the day in India. I do remember from years ago a trip to Ireland and spending the first day falling asleep in each room of a museum.
So I will close this page out. Looks like it takes about 4 days for me to readjust. On the trip out, I think one has to really take on the problem and stay awake as long as possible and just put up with the early waking. In a sense, I love being up and walking around when I am the only foreigner out. Coming back, I am still ok with just doing whatever for the first 24. If I want to sleep, sleep. Then start to fight the afternoon nap and try to stay in bed later and later each morning.
I have not talked at all about drugs on the plane. Kim said she took a sleeping pill and did not sleep. Everyone says that alcohol is not a great help and of course I do as much drinking as reasonable on the ride. I was very lucky to “dose” on the 15 hour flight back and so once I was really “awake”, I only had to entertain myself for 7 hours. I had tons of things to do. Hours and hours of projects on the computer and a charged spare battery to keep me operational. I just did not have the “energy” to do any of the projects. I did get to writing about India in the last hour or so. Oh well. At least now I have done the 15 hour ride and feel that I can take it on again. I did enjoy the 7 and 8 more but I did have Kim and Elizabeth with me. The thing I really lacked on the way home was an interesting seat mate. But then again I had an empty seat which sure made organizing the toys a lot easier!