Nerves

Are you the same as me, loaded with a kind of nameless anxiety which strikes before any trip? I am roaming round the house, ostensibly packing, but not being very effective. Had to go to the shops, several of them, to buy - what? something, anything. On one level, it's practical questions I ask myself: have we got enough shampoo, do we need sunblock? But at another, I know I am worrying about whether I will survive this journey: will I come home again safely. Travelling is hazardous. It is not natural to whizz along at hundreds of miles an hour, 37,000 feet up in the sky. We travel for pleasure, work, education, swank, fashion, consumption, wilfulness. But I believe there is a widespread and smothered fear about it all. Why else do we (the public) rush to the cafeteria on any ferry the moment we're aboard? It's primal fear which does it, pressed down out of sight. The merchants love it of course, and supply us with a huge array of stuff to spend our money on - food, trinkets, gadgets, clothes, accessories, print, more of all of it, almost all unnecessary. It takes our mind off what we're doing, or about to do. All worries about gravity, accidents, incompetence, terror, etc. can be swished gently away. We spend and relax. But only sort of.
So we fly to Venice at dawn....