Megalopolitan
I was just coming around to consciousness, awakening from an unnatural sleep. My eyes work hard to focus in on the blurry, large, neutral colored, stone tiles moving, somehow, below me. My little body was so heavy, I could hardly lift my head. I had been drugged again.
I could hear the endless canned voices over speakers squealing their important announcements. I felt the scratch of my dad's sideburns against my tender cheek, my fine blond hair sticking to his stubble. He shifted my dead weight over his opposite shoulder, adjusting my bulk more comfortably for him to continue walking. I was an island in a roaring sea. Hustle and bustle, loud, quick movements all around me yet somehow not touching me. The only one it seemed, in this swarm of thousands, that was not able to move of my own accord.
The voices eventually tuned in and became sharper. The familiar and calm tone of my dad's voice directing us to turn right here. My mother and her beehive Marla Thomas hair flip do scampering down the corridor in her all too mod red polyester dress. She clasped tightly the hand of a little girl about 7 or 8 years old with auburn colored thick ponytails bouncing along to her own inner rhythm. She skipped through crowds in her white mary janes and white chiffon dress, with large blue polka dots across its bias, matching mine draped over my fathers shoulder.
The mood was electric, everyone seemed to have a purpose, a destination. There were floor to ceiling windows and black leather, waiting room style chairs at every turn. As we approached the gate lady I realized I was keenly aware of everyone's shoes, due to the position of my head draped over my dad's strong shoulder. With my last ounce of energy I picked up my head in time to see the disappearing door where the gate lady still stood, the gate lady with her white bucket hat plopped upon her bobbed blond hair. I felt the familiar cool sweat spread across my neck. As the woman began to grow smaller and smaller in my vision, the walls began closing in as if I were in a tunnel. “Oh” my four year old brain finally processed just before I fully dropped off to deep slumber “we are at the airport again”.
I’ve always had motion sickness, cars, buses, trains, boats, airplanes, anything that moves me, eventually moves me to throw up. I would sit in the middle of the back of the car, no reading or looking out of the window, just straight ahead focus, breathe, it didn’t really help, nothing did. If the roads were windy enough and I was subsequently green skinned enough, I would get the coveted front passenger seat reserved for my mother (first) and my older sister (second). Dad was always the driver. It was only relegated to me in times of severe vomiting out the car windows. As a result of all of this, my parents would give me the drug Dramamine, side effects: drowsiness, constipation, blurred vision, or dry mouth/nose/throat may occur. It worked for them as I turned into a pliable sack of potatoes vs. the active young nauseous child I truly was. I was easy enough to carry when drugged and gave little resistance and/or discord while traveling. What more could young parents want? Perfect.
We would always get “dressed” to travel. Very much our “Sunday Bests” or outfits bought for just the airport occasion. My sister and I were often dressed in identical dresses, though clearly looking at us, all could tell that we are nowhere near being twins, identical or fraternal. She is four years older, tall and thin, freckled and redheaded. I am not. My mother spent considerable time on our “outfits” and overall appearance for our trips. Perhaps she was trying to announce to all that would take notice, we are sisters, we are a family. Our individuality muted in matching frocks.
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Even through my Dramamine infused coma of childhood travel I saw airports as exciting,. To me they were glamorous, and stimulating places. I am now oddly comfortable at airports. They are not home, not a final destination, but in-between places, connectors. Not “real”, their strategically designed optimal flow plans glaringly obvious, but these man made portals are an exactingly choreographed gateways of voyage.
I love to see flocks of flight attendants as they glide seamlessly across the polished floors of international airports. A gaggle of men and women wearing precisely matched uniforms of the same cut and color. The women with delightful hats perched on coiffed hair, the men with ties and suit coats to match. What particularly makes my little joy needle skip a beat is when the women are wearing high heels. Some have the sensible, yet professional, lower heeled shoe, but some, usually the youngest of the flock, strike out in 3-4” high heels, clicking their way, like birds feet, across the terminal's highly polished marble floors. A secret dream of mine was to be a member of this club, the romance of it all, decidedly dashed early on by my untamable motion sickness.
As Stephen Spielberg wrote, and Tom Hanks portrayed in The Terminal, a movie about real life Mehran Karemi Nasseri’s 18-year-long stay at Terminal 1 in the Charles de Gaulle Airport of Paris (It was reported that all the while, Nasseri had his luggage at his side) you can actually live at an airport. I’ve recently wondered if I could ? If I had endless resources I’d choose a popular European airport. I could buy outrageous unguents from the Pharmacias. I could be at the early morning drop of the latest Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines in the local language outside the newstands. I would be sure to find the best food, the best espresso. Airports are a city inside a city with their own scandals, police departments and construction. As with a lot of cities they can be tricky to navigate. My advice; keep your head up, your destination in mind at all times, your hand physically in reach of your documents (tickets, phone, passport) your eyes on the signs and boards, your ears on the jumbled announcements. Pay attention.
If I lived at an airport I would find some security in the meticulously timed pods of the Lufthansa flight L37 arriving from Tokyo by the passengers' appearances and attendants' uniforms. The pattern of the business travelers landing home Friday evenings, hurriedly scurrying into awaiting cabs to get into their children before bedtime, and then eventually into their lovers arms - already ticking down the hours until the lift off on Sunday night. The predictability in the scheduled flow.
Airports are the thoroughfare for residents of the world, literally parading in front of your eyes. Each airport reflects its environment, its culture, its people, and history. There are over 41,700 airports in the world with 13,000 of those being in the US. Whether you are at Chicago O'hare airport or the world's busiest Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport in China, if you have time, visit the international terminals. You will find travelers for business, pleasure, relocation, funerals, weddings, holidays. It is a kaleidoscope of the world displayed in one big bright moving mural of global citizenry.
I’ve come a long way from the paralyzed young girl being carried and dragged across these thoroughfares. Now I embrace travel and have figured out my own way of making it work for me. I have consciously recreated my dramamine comatose early experience of traveling, into a more modern, holistic, adult way:
Headphones and phone charged and ready for transport at all times
Whereabouts of power cords for above known at all times
Playlist of Moby Long Ambients and Long Ambients Two downloaded and in que
Never go below deck of ANY boat
Silk cocoon style body bag to fully envelope me for long flights - with custom slit holes to accommodate “visual” of seat belt for flight attendants, so no need to wake me
Window seat whenever possible - best opportunity to cuddle into a limb deadening ball
Thick book that can double as an elbow prop on arm of window seat
Sit in front or on the wing (most stable for turbulence)
One glass of white wine, preferably in a real glass, as soon as wheels lift
Travel pillow - still looking for most comfortable one out there
Air travel landings still get me, be prepared
Water or coconut water, force yourself to drink them
Lavender or Rose water spray in smaller than 2oz TSA approved spray bottle to stay fresh.
Movie and audio book downloaded, just in case
Backup plan if all falls through - high does of CBD
My best of list:
Dublin Ireland, friendly enough to get a taxi easily at 2:30 am
Denpasar Bali - best bathrooms for getting violently ill in - large enough to change an entire outfit.
Seoul Korea - best traditional dance demonstration with women in full makeup and costume on a small stage inside the terminal, accompanied by live flutist
Rome Italy - upstairs lounge best for plugging in and dropping out - best gelato
Santorini Greece - best for chaos of magnitude scale
John Wayne CA - best for small feel in big city (complete with HOT tarmack you walk across outside from plane steps! Cute!)
LAX - best chair massage and best gate agent that allowed my 2.5 ounce expensive face cream to pass through security check
Laguardia NY - no idea, just a place to pass through?
Nantucket, MA - best for dropping you into Biff and Muffy asap
Telluride CO - best for scariest runway balanced on top of a mountain
Honolulu HI - leis made of orchid, jasmine and kika blossoms
San Francisco CA - best yoga room for stretching between layovers
Fargo ND - best small time, and I mean small time, airport
Ohare Chicago IL - best at being my worst airport, recreating scenes from Home Alone, I am easily lost here and always grateful to the stereotypical Irish cop standing by to guide me to the right train. Ohare Trivia: Basement of Ohare is the The Billy Goat burger stand from the infamous old SNL sketch of “no coke pepsi”
Delhi, India - best for scaring the crap out of me
Trivandrum Kerala India - best for arriving in paradise
Houston TX - best at longest custom lines ever
Heathrow UK - best at being British
Logan Boston MA - best for feeling like I’m home
Next time you find yourself with a layover, with your headphones blaring your favorite playlists, watch the soup of a collective community of random strangers thrown together, all going somewhere. I somehow fit into this autonomy nicely, where I belong, between places. Homeless yet not, and always with the security of a return ticket.