At the end of a closed runway

Pondering the quality of an airport at night

What if all the planes were tied down at lift-off, forced to struggle against their tethers? An airborne carousel of aluminum longing. 

The airport is a place of static energy; forced to wait to go. Where you can witness the beginning and end of missing. Tho surely some prefer the leaving to the reunion of returning. 

It is a structure bustling with serendipity where the possibility of connection clicks anew with each arrival and departure. Do you remember when instead of LED screens, the status of your flight was displayed on a Solari board? What I thought was Rolodex technology was actually motors and electricity - much like our hearts and aircraft. Present day monitors give no sound when your flight is changed, but no one is listening anyway. 

I miss the way our airport used to be. With its quiet concourses and half empty parking garages. But it’s expanded to meet the needs of our ever fattening population. Way after dark was my preferred airport time, when I’d start at the top of the parking garage and watch the flight patterns of periodic planes over the river’s sinuous blackness. Does the river believe it gives life to migration? 

This was the after time.  After the romantic reunions came to an end, when you are left with the overlooked. I am moved by the subtle gestures of those not wanting to be noticed. Longtime couples who exchange their partner’s bag for a quick habitual kiss. And the ones alone not wanting to be seen. Are they, with their low hung focus, the only people who notice the intrepid pattern of airport carpet? 

I prefer the terminal over busy gates where everyone is overrun with encampments of carry-ons. Stuck in the limbo of here and there - between where you want to be and where you are - puts everyone on edge.

Instead I would stand at the windows, caught in the overlapping temporal reflections and wonder if I was in the right place. But the airport halts my wants. It gives me everything I need. Expansive windows to the bluffs. A chair next to a plant where I can read. Coffee until closing time and water fountains after. 

Megan’s dad took us on a 2:00 am tour of the airport runways when he was still head of Operations. Each closed runway was marked with an illuminated X that flashed with the lazy speed of a late season firefly. The transition from obsidian to white was so slow you could catch the outline of each individual bulb as it brightened. I was entranced by the “this is not the way” message of the X’s. I want to be told where to go, but I don’t want to be told the way I’m going is wrong. So take me in and wrap me in your perpendicularity. Tell me it’s okay to choose the path crossed-out because the other paths are full of planes.