Homeward bound? Homeward found?
Today right now marks the fifteenth time I’ve been to an airport in the last month. That’s a lot. With all the layovers and friend-pick-ups, friend drop-offs and traveling across the world business, it breaks down to an airport visit every other day in the 30 days I’ve been home for break. George Clooney’s infatuation in Up in the Air with the choreography of traveling took on a whole new meaning after this break. If only I could have been having an affair with an attractive mate with a similar schedule like he pulled off in the film, things would have been s-well.
What’s more striking than the number of “please fasten your seatbelts” and “you’re now free to walk around the cabin” is what it all represents.
It’s like every trip has been a little compartment, a little splice of here-to-there, him, him, home-to-away. Every layover is a limbo, a temporary existence in a temporary place that means nothing more to you than a mediocre parking spot in a nondescript strip mall. Time, when you’re in an aircraft, freezes, and though it’s racing and tangled and unsure of itself outside, it’s stagnant when you’re flying and slow enough that you can watch bad movies and read books and listen to music and live in this kind of cocooned and secure shell. Until you egress, anyway.
