Air's wet with a cool breeze blowing. The sky to the east is cast with a gray blanket of cloud; to the north, a small window into the blue atmosphere pokes its way through. To the east, all that is seen of the setting sun is a golden strip that paints a few clouds a reddish tint. A masterpiece in the making.
A bird just defecated on my left middle finger.
And now a plane is swooping down to land while a train churns its way along its tracks, sounding its horn.
All around can be felt the quiet movement of people.
Airports are a gigantic annoyance. The wait for a flight, whether departing or arriving, is always unbearable and food and drinks are heinously overpriced. Tired, groggy folk sleep on their chairs, having lost hours of sleep traveling from one city to another - one country to another. The logistics of travel I would say few actually enjoy. On my own behalf, I'll tell you right now that's how I feel.
Yet despite all those cons, the airport contains that which is most important: a community of people. It's a haphazard community, of course. All the people are brought together for different reasons and, more often than not, will not speak a word to one another unless they need directions to a gate. Where else, though, will you come across such a diverse band of persons?
I have the pleasure of flying between Miami and New York City, two destinations and hubs that millions of passengers go through in any given year. This past spring I also had the opportunity to live in Prague and take advantage of the relatively cheap European low-cost airlines that ferry people all over that ancient continent. What's most amazing is the number of voices heard, and often speaking any number of languages. So many cultures are heard in an airport, so much individuality between nations and even between people, once the voices are distinguished between one another.
Often in Prague, I'd randomly look up into the sky and find a far-off plane with contrails trailing behind it. Who knows where its point of departure was and where its point of arrival will be? For that moment, when that plane flies over my head, a far-reaching connection is made. These are people miles away, engaged in their own activities whether it be reading, sleeping, eating - any of the many wonderful opportunities for fun and relaxation that a large, pressurized tube traveling at hundreds of miles per hour can afford.
They can't see me, but I'm there. They look down and see ground and though I'm an atom at that point, I'm there. That's a hell of a random locking of eyes.
All my life I've had planes roaring through the skies in the background; living so close to MIA will do that. I've never payed particular attention to the planes that fly much closer, always having my eyes focused on the ones too far to make out in exact detail. Yet now I realize what an opportunity, what a vantage point I have.
I'm sitting on a concrete block in front of the Miami International Airport; the El Dorado furniture store lies to my left. The highway beyond that. Perimeter Road stretches around this side and cars run along it with their own cargo of people.
In the midst of writing this, the train I saw passed right in front of me. It blocked my view for just a second and then all was laid out before me. Now I see more of the sky. The sun is nearly gone beyond the horizon, though the open air it illuminates is much larger.
Another plane makes its way to the end of the runway, preparing for its take-off. It's a cargo plane, which has no windows; a fact I just realized recently. Though its cargo is not people, it symbolizes a global connection that's rather important.
I'm going to pay attention to its take off. That wind blasting through the air, those engines humming a raucous note...you know what that really signifies?
Freedom.
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