I remember returning to Chicago's O"Hare airport after a stay in a quiet Austrian village. My first impression upon returning to America was that I had landed in a hive of bees. The airport, the highways, the city were full of a buzz and hum and dizzy pace from which I had stepped away. It did not take long for that gap to bridge -- for me to join back in to the scurry and clicking and whirring and thrumming. My life ramped up at an astonishing pace and stayed in overdrive for a long time.