Love (Airports) Actually.
I love airports and in an early morning, slightly delusional, entirely too slap happy moment I had on the last trip I took, I told me parents this fact. They looked at me like I was a psychopath— or maybe it was residual from me showing them that my matching shoes had shoelaces with drastically mismatched lengths. I don’t know. It was early. Either way, I felt like I had to justify myself throughout the entire trip, so here are just a few reasons supporting my adoration of airports:
I love that airports have such first date energy, trying to pull out all of the stops in order to make a first impression— stress sweats included. At CLT in Charlotte, NC, they have a thoroughfare lined with live ficus trees and quaint rocking chairs. The Atrium, as they call it, is filled with bright, natural light and is just begging travelers to sit and rock a while. If that isn’t the most southern thing, I don’t know what is. Here’s what CLT had to say about it, “the 35 Ficus Trees are part of CLT’s southern hospitality. Passengers often ask if they’re real. You better believe they are. Each generation of trees is showered with its own special touch of #TLCfromCLT. Ficus Trees also are located on Concourses D and E.” And while I don’t want you to miss a connecting flight, I highly recommend you check it out, if your travels ever pass through.
I love that the airport sees some of the most heart wrenching “goodbyes” and the most enthusiastic “welcome homes”. I always feel a little weepy as I pull up to the departures curb, and hug those I love most and my heart beats so fast as I scan the arrivals hall for a familiar face. I love passing families that are eagerly waiting for their overdue reunions, posters and balloons and flowers in hand, and hearing their overjoyed cheers and exclamations of “You’re home! Welcome back!” Like Hugh Grant, I also have the sneaky feeling that love, actually, is all around. And there is no better time to indulge in this discovery than right before you sit in a tin can going 500 miles per hour 30,000 feet above the ground.
I love the snippets of strangers’ lives I get to experience. Whether it is the lovely middle aged couple who sat next to me at an airport bar in Boston, or the young man sitting across the aisle from me talking about his time working for a Nascar team, I love talking to people about where they are going and where they are coming from. I love to just sit and listen to the stories being shared all around me, the whispered instructions from parents to their kids, the loud last minute phone conversations, the timid small talk between strangers that grows deeper and more comfortable as the hours pass.
Airports unite humans in a way that very few other spaces can. The very moment we step foot inside of one, we all become “travelers” traveling through terminals, through countries and continents and hemispheres, traveling through life, all with the same goal of getting home.
I will say that there are many things I don’t love about airports— the expensive food, the TSA guidelines that seem to change from airport to airport (Shoes on? Shoes off??), the way time warps to make you simultaneously feel like you are running late but also never getting home? I could go on— but for now, I think I can tolerate those things all in the name of love.