The airport is, admittedly, one of my least favorite places to be. Here's why: it makes me happy.
Okay, how very Goth of me to hate a place that makes me feel pleasure. But, it's true. When I'm at the airport I get a feeling of such comfort and joy and excitement -- all the movement and travel and possibility of it. I feel the same way at train stations. I doubt a bus station would do it for me, however. Though South Station, which is a combo of both, certainly gives me the same warm and fuzzy feeling that any other train station does.
So, I hate airports. Why? Hope. Same theme that's presently floating in and out of my entire existence. Airports are all about becoming -- transference, maybe even transgression -- and crossing over from one space into another, from one existence into another. And at airports, I, unlike the vast majority of the world, fall head over heels in total love with humanity. No sarcasm here, it's true. I look around and I am giddy with love for all the poor schleps and their dumb ass lives and all the ultra chic jet setters and their asinine behavior and over-indulgence. And the yuppie 30-something families chasing after their gap-wearing kids. Seriously. I'm in complete all-out love with every one of them.
So, in other words, I hate airports because they make me feel connected to everything and I'm not connected. I'm lonely. I'm isolated. My life is devoid of direction and meaning. And airports make me feel like other people's aren't (though that's doubtfully true) -- they make me feel like other people have places to go and people that they're traveling with. And, right now, I just have me. Being at the airport today reminded me what it was like when he was here and I had someone to share my life with. And it reinforced all my listless wandering.
I'm a bad flyer -- I can't stop envying everyone else and I'm left feeling nothing but alienation and emptiness.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Huh. I hate airports too, but it's because they make me feel vulnerable and exposed, make me most aware how close I am to living in a police state, some SF dystopia. They make me hypochondriacal, which I never am anywhere else, just because I always get sick flying. Because airplanes are germ-exchange havens, giant test tubes rocketing through the heavens full of stale breath, sweat and poorly cleaned-up vomit. Basically, airports make me feel alone, hermetically sealed off from reality, emotionally and physically.
Subways and trains, on the other hand...once the initial fear of getting off at the wrong stop has worn off...they kind of make me feel happy and hopeful. Wonder what the difference is.
Incidentally, your take on airports actually strikes me as pretty unique. Poetical and fascinating in its distinctiveness.
Put it in a poem.
Post a Comment