airports

literally. at the airport. with much too much time on my hands. i initially caught myself feeling sorry for myself. thinking about the day's muck up: a missed connection flight, weather delays, a suitcase transfer, and burned coffee. until i told myself to get a grip. because then i remembered this. and then i got a starbucks. which made it a lot better (small things and such).

and then i also had time to wonder about airports in general. remember the scene from Love Actually, where the cast spent days at the airport filming reunions of people? it was in the opening scenes of the film. a conflation of so many events, so many things happening in one scene: children back in the arms of a parent, couples long separated reunited, grandparents greeting grown children (who never cease being parents and children who will always be their children). i love airports. because life almost seems to be condensed into one space in an airport.

i watched a couple push three children around in one stroller. and i thought of their bravery. and i wondered how anyone does it.

i watched businessmen and women sit alone at tables in the coffee shops that littered the spaces between boarding gates, and i wondered how long they'd been away from their families. and i wondered if the cost was worth it. is the cost ever worth it? can you gauge the cost, if you don't know the price you're paying? most of us will never know how much we've traded in without knowing what we've lost.

i watched pilots go through special doors reserved for flight crew. secretly wishing i knew what was behind the special doors. thinking that these people were consistently allowed to defeat the rationale of gravity. catapulting tons of heaving metal into the sky, while the rest of us sit in cabin seats intended to look like mini-versions of our living rooms. doesn't it defy reason? that i would trust someone i've never met to get me across an ocean, rock quarries, and desert in a piece of tin? it is crazy.

and i'm sitting in a departure gate, watching a new friendship form, the language barrier between two people disregarded for the sake of conversation (secretly happy no one is talking to me). Glad that people make these connections. grateful that i've been blessed with all the friendships and family i have.

don't let me get carried away with the airport talk. there's a creeper staring me down and i've wondered if i need to move. which also means airports aren't glamorous. they're just a slice of life in a microcosm.