We love airports because they\u2019re impermanent. And inside of them, we are impermanent people. We are not students or waiters or accountants in the airport. We\u2019re not husbands or daughters or wives. We are whoever we want to be while we\u2019re suspended between one place and another \u2013 we\u2019re travelers. We\u2019re nomads. We\u2019re businessmen. We\u2019re going far, far away. We\u2019re coming home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they remind us how easy it all is \u2013 to leave, to return, to roam far, to stay close. We spend years agonizing over what to do next \u2013 should we stay, should we go, should we linger, should we leave. And in the airport, it all seems so simple \u2013 there are limitless planes, headed to limitless corners of the planet. Within 48 hours, we could be just about anywhere we wanted. And suddenly none of it seems so complicated. It\u2019s a gate and a nap and a meal and a window seat. The life we\u2019ve spent our whole lives yearning is tangible. It\u2019s here, in the airport. It is flashing in front of us on noticeboards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they strip us of our egos. We\u2019re all scared when the plane starts to shake. We\u2019re all leaving somebody we love. We\u2019re all caught in the transient nature of coming and going and for a little while, inside the airport walls, we are no different than anyone else. We all groan when that flight gets delayed. We all don\u2019t want to pay $14 dollars for that sandwich. We\u2019re all a bit tired or on edge or ticked off. We\u2019re all here together, for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they remind us of the people we could be. Of the infinite choices we have, not just about where to go or where to stay but who we could embody and become. In the airport we are nobody and everyone at once. We\u2019re the compilation of the people we\u2019ve been and the places we\u2019re going and whatever else falls between the cracks. We\u2019re the businessman headed to Hong Kong. We\u2019re the first class passenger jetsetting to Paris. We\u2019re the bare-bones traveller who is wandering far away to find himself. We are simply ourselves, defined only by the clothes on our back and the contents of our luggage. We can slip through the cracks of our mistakes and all the people we wish we were not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they make us remember \u2013 that the problems and choices and troubles that plague us can be left behind in a physical way. That there is no person who stopped loving us in Bangkok. That nobody scorns our name in Philadelphia. That there are endless cities, endless destinations, endless corners of the world and endless people we could become within them. That even if starting all over isn\u2019t easy, it is possible. It\u2019s an option. It exists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they take us away, momentarily, from the people we\u2019ve become and the lives that we have chosen. They make us think about not just where we\u2019re going but where we could be going instead \u2013 as if we\u2019ve flipped a coin up in the air and get to choose, in the moment before it lands, which side we really hope it\u2019s on. We see our errors so clearly in the airport \u2013 the planes we should have boarded, the destinations we wish we were speeding on towards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We love airports because they let us be effectively nowhere. And only when we are briefly, temporarily nowhere, do we realize exactly where we ought to be headed after all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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