Teleporting Is Fun, Exhilarating, and Exhausting — Visiting Toad Friends and Other Eclectic Writers Makes It All Worthwhile

When we all found out we can teleport

Imagine it’s an alternative year, 2021 CE.

The United Nations has declared 2021 the International and Intergalactic Year of Peace and Trust and the International and Intergalactic Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development.

It’s a new world in which time and space aren’t limiting. Humans can teleport anywhere. We discovered this a few months ago.

My wanderlust has been simmering, then bubbling, and now boiling. I need to teleport — now.

My husband, two children, and two dogs are in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the United States. We’re firmly in the middle of the states and haven’t traveled much since the early 2000s.

Our travel lust has been amplifying over the years, but mine is calling the most urgently.

After a family talk, I’m given the grace to globe-trot for a few months while my husband and kids hold down homebase — this is after visiting all the family we haven’t visited for years because travel was insanely expensive in the olden days.

With my family’s blessing, I visit friends I’ve met through the online writing community.

I close my eyes and teleport to see Rachel Presser in New York. Her large toad and lizard pets cuddle into my lap in her warm room while we drink chai and talk about our messed up childhoods and what it’s like to be a millennial (her) and a Gen Xer (me). There’s more crossover than you might expect.

“Your essay on Sleepless in Seattle is phenomenal, Rachel. I never realized how creepy that movie is towards women. And, since you’re a native New Yorker — where I’ve never been — until now — it was a blast reading your insights on the New York of the 90s versus the New York of the 2020s,” I say.

She pets her horny toad, Simon, and replies, “Yeah. New York was really cool back then. I hope LA will work better for me.”

After I wish her luck on her move and tell her I’ll visit her in LA, I teleport back to my home in Oklahoma.

Did I mention currency is no longer something we use?

We barter and gift services. Humanity has found a way to magnify empathy and treat everyone with dignity and respect. While there’s no more famine or war, humans are curious creatures and we continue to think big.

We debate and innovate. We explore.

After I visit Rachel, I decide to head west. From the Toad Den, I close my eyes and imagine Hogan Torah’s Chatsworth home. I pull my curly brown hair into a ponytail and put on my best pair of sneakers.

Hogan walks a lot.

He lives in Los Angeles. I imagine Hogan’s 5’7” frame. His trimmed brown beard. I see his heroin withdrawal photograph and see him in the present. He hasn’t used heroin or meth in over two years. He’s walking his dog, Chiclet.

When my vision becomes crystal clear, I find myself facing Hogan outside of his front door. Chiclet’s on a leash and Hogan’s holding a poop bag.

I giggle. I close in for a humongous bear hug. He reciprocates.

“Hey, Dork.” Hogan looks me up and down and shakes his head.

Since I flirt with him constantly, I’ve wondered if there’d be any attraction. Hugging Hogan feels like coming home. I wonder if he feels the same way.

“Hi Hogan,” I say.

I stoop down to pet Chiclet, who nabbed my heart long ago. The elderly Chihuahua accepts my cooing.

Hogan says, “Let’s go get tostados. Tacos are bullshit.”

“Cool. Tostados and beer. Let’s go!”

We’re famous writers now. We prepare for guest appearances on podcasts and TV shows. We manifested that with our newfound time-and-space-warping abilities.

We dream up another inspired Netflix series.

I stay in LA for a long time. When you’ve been navigating lifetimes with a friend as Hogan and I have, meeting in person for the first time, instead of when we talk online or astro-project at night, there’s a lot to say.

On my last day in LA, I wipe the dripping salsa from my chin and proclaim I’ll visit Hogan and Rachel in LA once she’s settled in. Probably in February.

“Dope,” Hogan says. I return to my homebase — and bed — for rest. Teleporting is fun — and exhausting.

There are so many friends I haven’t yet met in the present that I’m putting a pin in time travel while I get used to teleporting.

After all, we just discovered our abilities a few months ago.

Baby steps, you know?

I visit my friend Sarah Paris in Colorado Springs and Arpad Nagy, Danielle Loewen, Lindsay Rae Brown, and Patrick Metzger in Canada. I go see Evieb and Carolyn Riker in Seattle. In Israel, I visit my uncle, my friends, Galit Birk, PhD and Sarene B. Arias.

There’s Galit Birk, PhD again in Texas (she splits her time) along with AJ Krow and Paul Combs. Hell, I might take the old-fashioned mode of transportation, and drive to Texas.

When I remember my college tutor, Giorgia from Roma, Italia, I teleport to hug her and see how she’s doing in her ballet career. Rome is beautiful and Giorgia is a wonderful host, still with her long thick black hair and espresso-shots addiction. I brush up on Italian and we converse in both languages. Learning languages is much quicker in this new world.

From Roma, I teleport to the United Kingdom, where my cinephile friend, Simon Dillon resides. He’s very particular about who he’ll take to the cinema. Generally, it’s only his wife and kids. Somehow, he gives me a pass. We find a double showing of The Shining and ET. These are two films that terrified us as children.

We make a pact not to talk once in the cinema and not until we return back to Simon’s home.

The only exception to the no-talking rule is ordering cinema snacks. With drinks, popcorn, and Milk Duds in hand, we enter the cinema and time-travel the old-fashioned way, through the artistic expression of film.

Of course, I must see the members of my writing group led by Kelly Eden and Ash Jurberg. We’re spread out all over the world, but I desperately want to try an HSP (Halal Snack Pack), so ask Ash if we can meet up at his place first.

“Of course!” he cordially agrees.

So, Sandi Parsons, Rick Martinez, Chrissy Boyd Miller, and Anthony Beckman, Kelly Eden, and I transport to Ash’s where we tour his part of Australia — and laugh — a lot.

There’s Anangsha Alammyan to visit in India, Kasun Ranasinghe in Sri Lanka, Bingz Huang in Singapore, Tracy Luk in Tokyo, Shanna Loga in Wisconsin, and Melissa Bee in Pennsylvania— and so many more friends all over the world.

First, I must take a break, to hug my kids and husband. I teleport myself home again.

There are numerous adventures to have. Back home, David and I discuss taking our kids all over the world when we get group teleportation down.

Then, I’ll visit famous writers, philosophers, and artists from the past.

Who would you visit?

Off the top of my head, I’d visit Georgia O’Keefe, Frida Kahlo, Rudolfo Anaya, Franz Kafka, and Carl Jung.

Imagine a world in which time and space aren’t limiting. Humans can teleport anywhere. Where would you go? What would you do?

You might also like my memoir list or these pieces:

🏊‍♀️ How I Found Myself Coming of Age in the Silence of Water
🚪 What the Hell Is Reentry Anyway? 

Twitter | Newsletter| |To My Lists | Subscribe to Medium (affiliate link) to support me and other indy writers.