Some people tell me how much they hate airports and plane rides like it’s purgatory.
I especially love these places.
It’s a marker of the first, last and sometimes only things of a place you will see.
I still remember the smell of plumerias as I walked off the plane when my dad took me home to Honolulu and the auntie-made the candy lei that was waiting for me at the gate (back when you could go to the gate). It was the first moment to the rest of my life in Hawaii.
Do you notice the kind of efforts a city puts into their airports? It’s a first impression. Especially for travelers on layovers who judge a country or city on just the few things they learn at the airport. Incheon in South Korea G-uped the shit out of the airport for the Olympics and it’s quite a spectacle I must admit. It was also the last time I saw my half-brother and his family. My sister-in-law was crying watching me go through security. We had no idea when we’d see each other again. And as of now, we still don’t know.
On the plane, I have conversations with people I don’t usually have the opportunity to. Being stuck next to someone for a few hours opens that window. Meeting people from all over the world, hearing their stories of breakups, weddings, honey moons, first times, last times, how far they have traveled, how excited they are, their grief, the excitement and learning about the place they are from, maybe a place I want to go-I love it.
I once told a student of mine who rode a handicap bus to and from school if she talked to the people on her bus. She said no. What was the sense, if she was never, ever going to see them again? And I said, that is exactly why you should talk to someone because you may never, ever see them again!
If I knew I was never ever going to see my mom or dad again, the conversations would have been different. If someone told me I would never see my favorite cashier at Viet-Wah ever again, I would be glad that I always took the time to stand in her line, talk to her and smile like I meant it because I did.
A friend of mine who was moving to a foreign country and didn’t know anyone there told me she was so scared when she got on the plane. She questioned what the fuck she was doing and she cried until she fell asleep. When she woke up, she found out the girl sitting next to her not only was from the same place as she was (being extra serendipitous since they were flying out from somewhere else) but they were going to be students at the same school in South East Asia.
I like watching people get dropped off-like the ones who dropped them off are probably someone special to them, or dependable or that last minute person who really didn’t want to do it. People who get picked up and kiss because their lover has been away for so long. Or maybe with internet dating, it’s their first time meeting…maybe even a first kiss. The people on the plane, rushing to get off because they hate planes or because they have a connecting flight elsewhere. The people at the gate plugged into their electronics dreaming of vacation or home. On an overnight flight I heard someone a few rows back crying. A trip to home or a new place was someone’s else grief. I know that maybe I might have to take that long flight to say goodbye to someone one day…
I once watched the sun set twice in day. Once in Japan and once in Hawaii. I also watched the sun set somewhere over the middle of America and wondered where I was watching it set from. And who else on ground was enjoying it.
Once I sat next to a young man from the east coast. It was his first time in Hawaii. People clapped as the plane touched ground and he shook with excitement while rubber necking to look through the small portals of first glances. When the door opened, I asked him…if he could tell me if the smell of plumerias were still there.
Transit-it’s that place that is not anywhere (but it is), a place ignored, sometimes uncomfortable and forgettable and a place where a whole shitton of people pass thru. But I guess it’s one of those things that people always like to say about life but is rarely taken into consideration beyond mere talk or the obvious-not-so-obvious….Transit…is…it’s apart of the journey and destination.