Or perhaps, more precisely - traveling with loved ones is a great luxury. The thought strikes me as I wearily wend my way through the winding line towards Security Check for the umpty-umpteenth time ever. It is close to 11 pm on a Wednesday night and the airport sounds like it's groaning, it's walls heaving in efforts to simultaneously suck in and spawn more people than ever before. There is the usual feeling of barely-controlled chaos as people lurch from check-in to security check to boarding gate wait to actual boarding and seating. Each stage fine-tuned to progressively stripping away anonymity, privacy, personal space and dignity until all that's left is a quivering bewildered human organism just eager to comply and be on his way without trouble.
But amidst all this, I can see some people that are apparently unaffected. They seem in relatively good humor, and are even smiling. It is inexplicable at first. Then I see the pattern - these are all people traveling with someone they know, someone they love. That is what lets them create little cocoons of blissfulness, these small pockets of peace. A mother with three children, the kids playing a little game of mini-tag in a playing-field circumscribed by their carry-on bags. A boy perched on a large suitcase, precariously balanced as his father (or uncle) gently pushes him towards the gate. A couple smiling, each holding a handle of a large bag as they trot along in perfect unison, perhaps it contains a body? A family of many, sprawled across several chairs, murmuring to each other until one or the other can't take it anymore and calls out loudly, upon which they all laugh uproariously, it is a great joke and it takes a while for them to quiet down again. They seem happy, as best as they can be under the circumstances. Or perhaps I am falling for the "grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side" syndrome...
For on my side of the grass, there are people traveling individually. Struggling with their bags, juggling their anxieties for the journey ahead with the attachments and associations left behind. Clad mostly in business attire, armed with cellphones, Blackberries, iPods, laptops, sound-deadening headphones, mini-DVD players, portable video game devices, magazines and finally, (the ever-so-humble!) books. Everyone is well-equipped to stave off boredom, to fight ennui and yet no-one really looks like they're having any kind of fun, for sure! So it is with me, also. Here I am - trudging along in a studious trance, nibbling thoughtfully on a muffin, sipping a silently cooling coffee. Watching my bags, the departure gate, my passport-wallet-tickets all the time. Just another cool character in mildly rumpled attire (a shark in a suit? Hardly!). An enigma of departure. It has been this way for close to fifteen years.
I think I must find out what the other side feels like, eh? Before its too late...before I miss the bus, oops sorry the plane...
:-)
Posts
Dom Pérignon’s Révélations in Bilbao
2 days ago
3 comments:
Hell is other people, said Sartre. I think Hell is other people's noisy, ill-behaved children on a plane.
If you had realistic standards, I still think it would not have been like this. Aren't you over-counting?? It is not 15 years.
Dear I-know-you
Other people's noisy kids in the close confines of a plane is indeed an excellent instance of hell on earth...but within that hell, the parents are completely absorbed and occupied, yes? That's what I find interesting...
Feels like fifteen to me...
Parents of such noisy kids are not absorbed. They are self-absorbed a**holes who have not civilised their progeny enough to be put in the company of humans but are still inflicting their company on others.
You can re-learn to count. :-P
Post a Comment