17 Comments

Hey Dan, my first experience with Planet Vertigo came from laying on my back, in an El Paso public park, on hallucinogens... but I digress.

Great piece. I'm so glad Zach remembered to tell me about your substack, mucho gusto! I immediately forwarded the link to Liz, who is of course busy traveling and Not slowing down one bit, I admonished her not to skim it. ;)

I hope to see you in the not too distant future.

Expand full comment

Loved this! We're in the States now, seeing family. Up in Colorado and waving down I-25 in your direction. I think El Paso's got some planet vibes there, for sure, the drama of the pass, the mountains, the border... I hope to see you too, on either side of the planet!

Expand full comment

I read this on my way to Costa Rica -- while there, I worked to sense the "feel" of an isthmus = the Pacific on our left, the Caribbean on our right. It's an odd feeling, for sure, for us continental folks.

Expand full comment

An isthmus is a whole other thing! I remember a certain dizziness in CR, too, and I want ot declare now that it's a whole different thing than an island, somehow... Hope you guys had a wonderful trip, can't wait to see you!

Expand full comment

I'm no expert but I think it's probably because you're hanging upside-down off the bottom of the planet.

Expand full comment

The gumboots all have velcro soles

Expand full comment

I remember a trans-Atlantic flight, seeing the gigantic ocean and the curve of the earth, but that planet feeling really came when the southern end of Greenland was added to the picture. OK, a very big island, but still...

Expand full comment

Can't believe the whole plane doesn't freak out and crush to the window. I mean, it's Greenland!!!

Expand full comment

Thanks, Dan. Loved it! I can understand the connection between island/sea and the feel of the planet, perhaps stronger than us middle-of-a-continent dwellers. On the other hand, I get a lot of my intense feelings of planetness (and beyond) by going small rather than vast. I remember being a 16 year-old and standing under an elm and looking up at its zillions of leaves and feeling gobsmacked by the vastness of the planet. I'm still getting that dazzling experience of living on a planet from looking at the tiny: David Haskell's The Forest Unseen visits a tiny circle of land in a Tennessee forest, and does deep dives into what he sees throughout the year. That triggers it for me big time. Or Ed Jong's I Am Multitudes goes microscopic, and that too turns my head inside out sending me to planetary vastness.

Expand full comment

Hey, I get that tree thing too!! Or some version of it. Not quite the planet vertigo--it's calmer, more slow wonder than big dizzy? But now I know where I got it from :) NZ's got good trees for it, but I'll lay under a tree anywhere. Did a lot of that in NYC parks. Hard to pull off in Shanghai, though. A Phoenix kid is always shocked they can get away with it, all those leaves. I'll have to check out the Haskell and Jong. Interesting you can get the feeling from *reading* about the wonders...I like that, too. Much love from NZ!!!

Expand full comment

Beautifully written. As an American in NZ, I sometimes feel like I “stick up” above the ground more than I’m used to but haven’t been able to articulate it like this. Now I know: it’s planet vertigo.

Also, my husband is from Sioux City Iowa. How strange is this planet?

Expand full comment

What?? Sioux City! Small world! J went to North High. Bet they know people in common, it ain't a big place. Wild. Y'all ever make it down to the Wairarapa, let us know!

'Sticking up above the ground.' Yes! Great way to put it!

Expand full comment

Yep, North High in the early 90s for him. What a coincidence! I’ll bet their circles overlap somewhere. We’ll look you up if we’re ever down there.

Expand full comment

As an expat from a similarly-sized island in the North Sea, I have to say I don't think this is a symptom of moving from a continent. The 'world', for want of a better word, feels closer here, and bigger. I live a 20-minute walk from a small town, but I can clearly see the Milky Way on a clear night. (Thanks to light pollution, I'd seen it just twice in my 43 years in the UK.) I'm so much more aware of local weather patterns now, in a way I never was back there. And the sky feels so much bigger here, despite being bounded east and west by mountains and hills.

Expand full comment

Hi Andrea! Thanks so much for reading! So interesting to compare the two islands. Now that you mention it, this American does tend to forget the UK is an island at all...Glad I'm not alone in the closeness. It's so real, but so hard to pin down. It's sort of spiritual, sort of physical, sort of metaphysical? The Milky Way, on the regular--how much does that matter to a life? I agree, the sky here is everything. All the NZ-is-great chatter doesn't focus on the sky nearly enough. If NZ were Arizona that's all we'd talk about :)

Expand full comment

Beautiful, man. Happy Winter Solstice and Matariki!

Expand full comment

And to you, sir!

Expand full comment