Atlanta International Ballet

(I wrote this in the Delta SkyClub overlooking Terminal T and Terminal A at Atlanta in September, en route home from a terrific weekend in Houston with Glenn and his mom, helping them with a few projects.)

I have a terrible confession to make.  While I, like so many others, have my own stories of horror about bad airport experiences, on the whole I actually enjoy being at one.  I welcome the sense of adventure they represent.

I enjoy watching the busyness, the hurrying ballet of men and machines.  Perhaps the first thing to notice is the graceful pas-de-deux at a single gate.  The aircraft noses in to a gate while the ramp chief guides them in, with the final "X" of his sticks to stop it precisely as needed.  The trains of baggage carts snaking about.  Some of the baggage trains are purposeful: pulling up to a luggage ramp or taking loads from the plane to the baggage center.  Others, not so much, and it's harder to tell whether perhaps some cart driver isn't perhaps just out for a spin.  It's fun to guess which are which.

That same dance repeats itself over and over up and down the rows of gates, with aircraft pulling in, aircraft backing out, some headed left, some headed right.  Look along the ramp and see the different classes of aircraft, all wearing the same Delta livery: rows of MD-88s and 737s, the workhorses, bound for places such as Raleigh-Durham, or Baton Rouge, or Chattanooga.  And here and there, the majestic 747s, the impressive 777s, and perhaps a foreign-flagged A380, each bound for exotic locations such as Rome, Rio, or Johannesburg.  I sigh a little, never having been to any of those places, wondering what adventures could happen there, and marveling at the sense of possibility that inheres to each aircraft.

When the kids were younger, we'd actually do a day at the airport as a family event.  We would go to National Airport and sit in front of those enormous windows looking out onto the ramp and the runway.  David would point to a plane and ask where it was going; I would see it's a United flight, and they only go to Chicago from DCA, and so I could sound truly impressive by telling him "Chicago."  Or the American Airlines flights: "Miami or Dallas." And then of course he'd pick a US Airways flight, which of course could be going anywhere from DCA.  Smart kid, testing how much Dad knows.

Now that they're older, we don't do that anymore.  And as I begin to contemplate what retirement could be like someday, I do wish I could do more of this with Mary: exploring new cities, jetting off to a new adventure now and again.  For now I have to content myself with imagination and wonder, and appreciation for the subtle rhythms and the varieties, in an international airport.