This American Life

When I listen to re-runs of "This American Life" I experience the strange disconnect of a jetlag. You know the feeling, when your body doesn't know where you are and is confused, but not necessarily miserable about it. I don't mean I feel jet-lagged because I'm listening to this American thing in another country, though I haven't heard the program in the States for years. Except once last summer I was listening while driving up and down Pacific Coast Highway looking for a Supercuts (which is in itself a slightly surreal experience.)

I feel the jetlag because each program for me has been overwritten by the landscape that surrounds it. I don't know if overwritten is the right word. Remember when, if you taped a cassette tape too many times, you could hear the words you taped before? It's like that for me - there are story echoes of the landscape mixed with each episode.

If you don't know the radio show, "This American Life" you'll have to check it out at http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx. Each week they have an hour-long show around a certain theme. Some of the chapters are essays, others are interviews or fiction stories. The archives go far back. Some of my recent favourites are: Nobody's Family is Going to Change, Valentines Day 2008 and a horror story for teachers, Human Resources.As I listened to the podcast on my nano and ran through the hills in Turkey, the paths and stories became connected. I didn't know how tightly the stories had been attached to the setting until last week when I was climbing the stairs up to the ridge above Discovery Bay here in Hong Kong and listening to a last-year story. Stride by stride I could see sandy hills with thorn bushes and simultaneously jasmine vines with butterflies. It was like how a camera can focus on a reflection and a scene at the same time, but the eye's focus moves back and forth. I kept expecting tortoises around the next corner and just saw dragonflies. I took turns that were not there and slipped on moss I never would have expected. I'm going to have to watch out for re-runs, or else watch my step.