As I sit on the plane, my nerves are all shaky.

Reason has become cigarette-paper-thin, a mere hint of a layer between sitting quietly, the motionless perception of the unheard-of happening below me (the rattling of the wheels, the pumping of the engines) and desperate panic that I could ride away on instead of wheels and wings .

The plane takes off, I soon fall asleep, and the plane lands again.

The reason membrane layer has become a bit more stable, I get out and I'm in a foreign country.

Johanna Dürrholz

Editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin

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I was never the great adventuress.

Why people go to Vietnam or Sri Lanka with their laptops and then just sit there at their laptops and bathe with water snakes or do yoga in front of the sunset is not really clear to me.

On the contrary, "remote work" on the beach or sabbaticals in the jungle always seemed a bit decadent to me.

I come from Emsland, sat in a plane for the first time at the age of 13 and then not for many years, left the European continent for the first time and prefer to go to the North Sea, which I have known since I was a small child, the plunged fearlessly into all waves.

I'm not that fearless anymore.

Nevertheless, there was always travel, and every time I got to know cities like Rome or Budapest, Barcelona or Vienna, I loved it.

I loved the strange smells and the sounds of the cities, each a little bit different in itself, the good food and the easy life.

I've listened to foreign languages, or listened to German tourists talking embarrassingly loudly in my own language, and grinned to myself.

I visited monumental churches and explored winding streets, I absorbed the flair of the foreign country like a sponge and was happy.

I thought I was missing nothing

And yet: When the corona pandemic set in and we stayed at home, I didn't miss anything, on the contrary.

I was happy to be healthy and to hole up, to eat pasta in the evening and to cuddle comfortably on the sofa.

That's all I need in life, I thought for many months.

A little sun on the balcony or in the park, chatting with friends and family, a few walks, good pasta dishes, a Netflix account and a properly stocked bookshelf.

"You're actually a real couch potato," remarked a friend in astonishment, also astonished because without a pandemic I was usually on the road a lot, participated and took everything with me and am a sociable person.

I never say no to business trips, and certainly not to other trips.

And yet the first few months at home on the sofa were pretty okay for me.

I thought I was missing nothing.

Many were like me.

We're still fine, we thought, as long as we were spared the virus and its consequences, as long as we had a job and could even go to the sea in the summer.

The Instagram timelines were suddenly flooded with happy people who were vacationing in the Black Forest or in Bavaria, who drove to the North and Baltic Seas and found avocado bread and oat smoothies as Instagrammable as in London or Berlin.

I don't have to leave here, at least not far, that's what I often thought and still think, I still have my mind and the books that kindly take him to other worlds and countries, and the films that distract him from a Corona reality and the music that makes him feel free.

To New York, seriously?

And then a business trip, to New York of all places, I can't be serious, can I?

Against any bad feeling, I hop on the plane and jet off into the distance as if I hadn't spent the past six months failing a 1000-piece puzzle featuring Harry Potter characters and loved our park around the corner look again from another side.