Airports are intriguing places. You feel so alone and then you look around and find that you are 1 or 1000 people all alone going from one place to another. I can't help but replay in my mind the airport scene with Zach Braff in Garden State. I suppose listening to the soundtrack adds to it... but Coldplay's "Don't Panic" pins the feeling so well. "We live in a beautiful world" and each of us is having to a piece of it.
As I sit here I wonder if the guy across from me, with his eyes closed, listening to his ipod, will sit next to me on the plane and we will exchange pleasantries. Any of these people could have an immense impact on my life within the time between boarding and exiting the terminal. The man has awakened and returned to a resting position much like his previous one. He has a map of Las Vegas resting at his feet and I wonder if this was his first visit here and where his final destination will be.
In an airport we are trapped in a limbo between where we are and where we will be. Sometimes life's like that. Will we all remain in the airports of our minds, worrying that we will miss the flights to where we want to go? I start to wonder if the map is not for him but for someone else. A loved one perhaps. Sometimes our destinations are simply to the places that have become home. One-way tickets are rarely ever bought. It is so comforting to know you leave one place to return to it. One's identity can change between departure and arrival but plainly we return to these places for the comfort of knowing they are loyal.