Sunday, October 21, 2007

NO ENTRY

I had the pleasure of picking up a colleague at BOS on Saturday. International arrivals are always entertaining. There are people waiting with flowers. There are children hanging on their mothers looking past the forbidding doors for their daddy. There are children fueled by the airport's mystery and hugeness running in eliptical pathways through the crowd. There are young families waiting for grandparents and old families waiting for the tired confused children who have flown too long. For every passenger that makes it through the doors there is the tiny rise in anticipation from the crowd. Will this one be the one I am waiting for.... will my passenger be next?

Little flocks of flight attendants leave together, uniform, efficient and in control of the role they play in the arrival drama. They are the harbringers of the flight they attend. If you see the BA attendants so the English have arrived. If you see AlItalia so the Italians are coming through. And as the crowd thins you see the worried or the impatient looks, the wonder with those with signs looking for their passenger, their international arrival, their unknown quantity, their love, their new friend as yet unmet.

The doors pose another thought. What goes on beyond them? What happened while they were away? Who did they see and what have they done? Will there be pictures to document the story or will there be secrets? The waiting crowd is blind to the travelers experience. Were they harrassed in customs? Did they lose their bags? Were their bags searched? What did they bring home? What did they leave behind? I think of my many journeys and how I came home time after time to a husband and son. Time afer time they waited for me in front of these doors that block the experience of my world from theirs, these doors that forbid view, that forbid questions.

BOS is where I come home. And so for me on this Sunny Saturday hours before game 6, I am not coming home through the doors but seeing and feeling what those I love have seen and felt for my many homecomings. And in seeing and feeling these moments of anticipation and worry I walk a step or two in their shoes. Reflect. What is like to be on the other side of your NO ENTRY?

2 comments:

Me said...

This reminds me a bit of "Love Actually"..at the beginning they talk about the arrival gate at Heathrow...how you never see angry people at an arrival date, how there always seems to be anticipation, hope and love.

It also reminds me that no one has ever picked me up at the airport who loved me and wasn't related to me....or a close girlfriend.

Depressing. Really. It would just be so amazing to have someone wait on that other site of the gate. I have waited many times for others....

BOSLady said...

So true, knowing that love is there is so meaningful throughout the flight. Now I wonder how I will come home to a pissed off cabbie taking an eastie fare home :-(