at the airport
This is how it works: You’re a child, spellbound by the sight of planes, as big as dinosaurs, rising off the tarmac and disappearing slowly into the distant sky, carrying all your dreams of flight with you. At the airport, you press your nose against the glass: cloudy with your thrill.
This is how it works, too: You’re grown, with decades of travel under your belt; maybe you’re a businesswoman, maybe your friends and family live a thousand miles and more across the sea. You’re sick of airports, swear you can recognize the smell of them blindfolded. The people rushing by and the sounds of the announcements make you ill.
This is how it returns. Sometimes. After months of back-to-back flights, your head spinning with time changes, you’re carrying the same pairs of underwear folded in the same bag, whose wheels are beginning to roll a little crookedly. It’s 3am, or maybe 6—you’re not sure. But the airport—maybe it’s in Munich, maybe Amsterdam, maybe Tokyo—is a ghost town at this time of night. Clean, quiet as a cathedral, and full of new glass and leather seats that smell like peace. You’re alone. Your body buzzes with sleeplessness. You have a spell in which to sit, and refrain from thinking. It has something to do with magic again.
Photo not foundPhoto not foundPhoto not foundBlog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, meerasethi and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
