Life in limbo...

Airports have become something of a way of life for me. Within these often massive structures I wander, sometimes aimlessly and sometimes with intense purpose, usually with tired eyes burning and often with a body exhausted by broken sleep or anticipating it yet to come. I read something, inconsequentially squandering time until the next call for boarding. I watch the other travelers. They are here for business or pleasure, alone, with family or friends, excited, miserable or indifferent. Here in London Heathrow I listen to the accents of these travelers; locals drawling with cockney twang, snippets of German which I have come to understand occasionally, a clipped Indian English, something twangy and American.

The ceilings are a thousand feet high here, supported by white industrial beams reminiscent of the Death Star, and there are windows from the tip top of level three down to the asphalt, outside of which airplanes taxi in and out, while luggage cars and transport busses are dwarfed by the magnificence of the flying behemoths bedecked with the Union Jack and emblazoned with the slogan “Keeping the flag flying.”

This is only my third experience with London Heathrow, what I imagine must be one of the biggest airports in the world, but somehow it seems familiar and small to me. I remember the giraffes outside the kitchy eatery on the third level, the Starbucks adjacent to the Pret a Manger on the second level, the Duty Free into which I have invariably ducked to douse myself in perfume (either one of my favorites, Marc Jacobs Lola or Burberry Brit.)

It seems as though every traveler I see is one I’ve encountered before, smiling with anticipation, grimacing with inconvenience, or zoning out with boredom. I’m not sure where I fit in, my frenetic mind hopping from one emotion to another, my face invariably expressing it without my consent. One second there’s a giddy grin plastered across my face, the next a glazed stare out the window or in the direction of a vaguely attractive fellow traveler, still another an anxious scowl of worry about whatever mysterious future is to come, or at the very least, the whereabouts of my departure gate.