A word on airports

I unironically claim airports to be my favorite places in the world. Time doesn’t seem to move quicker anywhere than during a layover between two gates in opposite terminals. Whereas some are pushing the boundaries of cheetah agility, racing down the moving walkway toting a 50 lb carry-on bag over their shoulders, others can be seen waltzing upstream without a care in the world casually “getting their steps in” and killing time as their layover turns into an overnighter. 

Airports remind me of a word I stumbled across pretty recently. This word is “sondering” or “to sonder.” Now, I still cannot confirm that this word is legitimately established yet, but if you look it up you can find a general consensus of its definition. In essence, it references the feeling of awareness that you are the main character in your own life and a background blip to every stranger around you. You may exchange a glance or a smile. You may exchange nothing at all. You are simply there and then you are not. Airports emulate this feeling as nothing else quite can. My take? This can make you feel crazy or it can make you feel free. 

Though my favorite thing in the world is making momentary airport friends whether it’s in a line or awaiting a flight in side-by-side seats, there is an air of acceptance that these simplistic conversations are temporary and will likely never even lead to learning someone’s name. I think airports are socially the safest place in the world. You will quite literally more than likely be flying hundreds of miles away from whatever embarrassing conversation you may have had within a few hours at MOST. Or maybe you meet someone really cool and get lucky enough to sit next to them on your flight as I did once upon a time when headed to Hawaii alone two summers ago. 

It’s funny that I wrote everything except this particular paragraph a couple of days ago on my flight to explore Jupiter/Palm Beach for the first time (it rocked by the way). At that time of day and on that particular flight, most around me were pretty content with keeping to themselves. Fast forward to now during my layover in Charlotte on the way back home- I feel so inclined to share a story about my newfound friendship with Susie from Raleigh, North Carolina: a woman who I had the pleasure of sitting next to on the way here and whom I hope to be in about 40 years give or take. I mean it when I say I think Susie knows more about me and my life story than my outer ring of friends do, and I think I could repeat the story of how she and her husband came to be word for word. Within a couple of hours, Susie reminded me of the inherent goodness of people, assured me that my independence and giddiness about life will take me far, gave me items to add to the checklist of qualities my future soulmate absolutely must possess, and made me giggle over her “good ole days” like no one ever has before. I am sharing this experience as direct evidence of how opening yourself and being kind to the strangers around you can walk you down a really cool path full of wisdom and cool relationships. Susie, I look forward to our lunch date in Raleigh and will let you know when I start my first job. 😉

Anyways, I think airports rock and you should embrace their madness if you haven’t yet.

Sincerely,

SB