Feature photo by Christopher Chan. Photo above by shimonkey.
It’s possible to learn about life from something as simple as waiting at the airport.
How many times have I done this – 30, 40, or even 50 times?
It is simple, isn’t it? I wheel my bags to the airline ticket counter, show my ID to the agent, say goodbye to my friends and family, pass through security, find my gate, and away I go. Most of my international adventures have followed this same routine at the start.
But this simple trip to the airport often manifests many different thoughts and feelings.
There is amusing simplicity in sitting and watching your fellow travelers stroll by…
Sometimes, what I bring to the airport is more than just baggage filled with clothes, toiletries, and books. Sometimes, the baggage is a bounty of emotions that forces me to perform a gut check, especially if the distance to be traveled stretches across the Atlantic.
“I can do this,” I say to myself. “I can separate myself from the people and a place that I love in order to fly thousands of miles and write yet another chapter of my life.”
I look at the people at the boarding gate and wonder what other chapters are also being written. The airport provides the most interesting of backdrops for someone who enjoys imagining other people’s stories.
There is amusing simplicity in sitting and watching your fellow travelers stroll by, guessing what their backgrounds are, what their homes look like, and what they might be feeling as boarding time approaches.
Photo by Giacomo P.
The young mother carrying a baby in a shoulder sling might be anxious for her parents to finally meet their first grandchild. The scruffy-faced teenager sporting a Lands End backpack could be returning home after a week of intense final exams.
Very often, there is also the traveler with a heavy heart, sad because of separation from a loved one.
The airport brings all these people together, reminding us that we are not alone on the journey. The emotions I feel are felt by everyone, and the paths we cross, albeit at different times, are quite often the same.
Every airport has this special role, acting as a crossroads for all of us.
It can mark the transition from one stage of our lives to another. At the airport, we seem to give ourselves permission to reflect on our past and ponder our future, without the distractions of daily routines. Here, we have a temporary reprieve from work, school, and family.
For those of us inclined to do so, reflection often leads us to ask why we are about to get on a plane to travel hundreds or thousands of miles away. Leaving family and friends is often a test. We are creatures of habit, are we not?
Photo by Hyougushi
We cling to the familiar – our comfy bed sheets, a favorite perfume on our significant other, or the ring tone we hear when our best friend calls.
Yet so much changes once we board the plane. New sights and sounds enter our world. We will make new friends; we will find a favorite new coffee shop; and there will be a new place to call home.
I’m at the airport and I know all of this from experience, but my stomach is still in knots; my insides clench, and I whisper, “Here we go.” Incredible experiences await: all I have to do is have faith in this first step, boarding the plane.
There they go. Passengers are starting to form a line at the gate. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now ready to start boarding British Airways Flight 208, non-stop service to London Heathrow.”
Here I go….
What are your thoughts on the metaphor of the airport? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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9 Comments... join the discussion!
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I like the line about a "temporary reprieve from work, school and family." Airports do feel like nether-zones which blur out personal, cultural, spatial contexts. I have always loved them, but I find they are eminently strange places. Inside the gates, they often seem totally devoid of a sense of place. I feel detached from myself (that is, from the sense of identity I feel being in a certain place), from my departure and destination points…in some blank, white, transition zone full of subtle bleeping and humming noises.
I had a 12 hour layover once in Vancouver and by the end of it I felt like I was no longer fully conscious of who or where I was…I could just watch the Indian men driving carts and the Mexican families drinking coffee and the German kids playing on statues in an awed stupor.
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Great article. Sarah, I like your comment about the "nether-zones." It's true, airports really exist outside of normal emotional and physical contexts. They're never a destination in and of themselves, only a means of getting there.
And Kevin, I like the idea of how we bring different kinds of baggage with us. My feelings at airports have run the gamut from stomach-clinching fear to jubilant ecstasy. It all depends where you're going, and really, in an airport, that could be anywhere!
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I really enjoyed this article; it brought back memories of my 1st trip to the UK by myself in August 2007. As I sat in the airport, I thought to myself "can I do this?" Even though I was going to the UK where they speak English, I was doing this by myself. There would be no one to guide me through London Heathrow, which was a trip in and of itself. It was my job to get me to my hostel, which I did.
For me traveling has become about the journey and not the destination. I used to think it was about "getting somewhere," but that has changed.
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This is excellent! For some reason I had chills reading parts of it, no doubt a subconscious reaction to buried memories of my time in airports. It is such a polarizing experience…seeing both extremes of the emotional scale…crying from excitement of being reunited with someone, crying from profound sadness at the prospect of never seeing someone again.
Sarah, I also think those are great comments…devoid of a sense of place…that is so true, it is almost dreamlike.
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No matter how often you go thru airports, in my opinion they are always like " Intrenational territory", they belong to everybody and nobody,.. And yes, they are packed of stories waiting to be experienced,.
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I'v always fealt that you could tell about a place by an airport… The quiet single terminal of Huntsville International… the busy multi terminaled Atlanta Airport… portland where it seems as if every one converged on one place but still wearing jakets… or Honolulu International whitch has many terminals but still seem quiet and peace full… There are always cheesy pictures or sayings of these places… like all the Nasa and Space perafanelia at Huntsvillle, or voice saying Mahalo over the intercome in Honolulu, it might not be what the place is truly about but I have always fealt that an airport attempts to show you the culture and places outside it's walls.
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I always wonder in airports, where are people are going, what are they doing there? Indeed airport are nether zones. You're not home, but you not THERE yet either…
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Merry Christmas to all… and to all a good night.
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