Airport Fabric

I've spent a lot of time in airports and on airplanes recently. I can't remember the last smooth flight I was on that wasn't heaving and lurching while we were outracing a storm and I was questioning whether my stomach was going to hold back the greasy, bland, room temperature airport food I'd just thrown down.  In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm listening to bad Huey Lewis piped overhead music competing against CNN reports blaring on overhead TVs, waiting to win the C19 gate boarding lottery.

In my brief existence, airports have come in and out of my life a lot. They are a necessary evil of liking to be in new places.  Yet beyond that, I've somehow landed in jobs that have required it. I've never loved the getting to and from places travel. Everyone is angry or at best, weary. Flights are packed to the gills, the seats are always broken, and they are so often late that it's a pleasant surprise when they're not.  And don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of having to take off my shoes (cursing that damn Richard Reid to bad places for eternity) just to be able to plod through security in a feeble attempt for us all to act like that makes any of us even remotely safer. (Hey TSA, here's a thought - how about we start inspecting shipment after shipment of cargo freighters registered in Libya at the damn ports instead of worrying about my frigging flip flops!)

So while I'll never be Ryan Bingham, I've come to a bit of a resigned peace to the whole airport experience.  Maybe I've done this enough, that the travel weariness is something I can now just take in stride.  Whatever it is, this trip I started to really pay attention to the people around me.  For example, the girl over there in the corner by her luggage, sobbing on the phone as she's saying goodbye to her boyfriend; the middle-aged couple staring at each other with steely looks, angry at each other over something seemingly important in the moment but not wanting to make a scene enough to address it in front of everyone by a gate; the old man wearing stark white tennis shoes contentedly reading his USA Today; the two men in the restaurant who added up their totals to learn they had more money left on their per diem so each ordered an extravagant dessert; the 21 year old girl chatting loudly at the bar that she's on her way to Phoenix meet a 36 year old man she met on the internet while the other patrons goad her on to tell them more; and even the hilarity of a woman practically on her knees begging the pimply faced 17 year old Cinnabon guy not to close so she could get her diabetic coma-inducing ration of sugared icing.

This is the fabric of an airport.  Everyone coming from all over, going to all over, meeting and interacting for the briefest of moments and then disappearing.  It's a fascinating thing to watch

But I can't tell you how content I feel that my own phone call is not to say goodbye, but a call to say I'm coming home.  Airports are a means to an end.  And right now I'm pretty confident my destination is the best in the world.

Take me home, Larry the Lynx. It's time to say O-bye-o.