I make my home in small airport terminals. The ones you have to walk a mile to get to, the ones added on later, during the renovation, all the bells & whistles they added to the rest of the airport didn’t make it this far, everything is gray and a little bit quieter and everyone just wants to get home to their small town. I make my home in the pockets the afterthoughts the corners the spaces where the WiFi doesn’t quite reach. Most people think life happens in the bustle, in the bright & shiny buildings full of bright (dull) & shiny (bored) people, in the new art installation in Terminal A – but the jokes on them. They don’t know that we’ve made our home here, in the cracks that bureaucracy forgot, in the space between the past and the projected future trends, in the muted tones & comfortable realness of Terminal C, which doesn’t have a chain restaurant or a Hudson Books and instead has a Snarf’s Sandwiches a Thomas Creek Grille and a local fudge shop. The people at my airport gates wear plaid. Boots. College hoodies. The people at my airport gates carry plastic bags of souvenirs, wired headphones, and Vera Bradley bags from 2005. The people at my airport gates say things like “Yessir” and “Take care.” The people at my airport gates read the safety information card in the seat back pocket. The people at my gates have whole rooms in their house they never go into. Some things are too nice to sit in, some things we don’t talk about. I love them, the people at my airport gates. They are my kindred, they are my home, we are the ones that make up Where Other People Are From (which is the majority of people, but when you spend time in one of those big, shiny-on-the-surface cities, or consume any kind of media, you tend to forget that). You forget that nobody is from LA, this is home for no one (those rare few who claim it are most likely from Pasadena, the Valley, maybe Long Beach). The people who are from New York City are a different species; we aren’t the same; I mean, we are, but how could I possibly be the same animal as someone who never ran barefoot in a cul-de-sac or nursed a baby squirrel or sat around big bonfires in big, empty fields under big, full skies? I can always sniff out the other twenty-somethings at my airport gates who are going home home, the place where they are from but haven’t lived for 10+ years. We struggle to call anywhere else home – will this ever change? Home is where my parents live, not my cramped studio apartment. We scurry away from our trauma and our memories and all that we know and love, in search of something else that might know and love us. People in Terminal A might be escaping, numbing, killing time, taking time off, using credit card points. Going on vacation, exploring, trying to create family memories with their 18-month old. Standing in line at Starbucks, artfully arranging their Away luggage & carry-on totes with 53 different pockets. Dreaming, wishing, hiding, seeking. The people at my airport gates are going home.
xx mm