I love airports. I think that’s partly because I love stories, and airports are so dense with stories you can feel them from a distance. You can hear it in overheard conversations and deliberately light-hearted banter on the way to the airport. The nervousness and excitement underlying casual conversations that even strangers like me can pick up. Nervous about starting a new life. Excited about finally seeing an old friend. Terrified of what is to come. 

Or, perhaps you’re the one starting the new journey. Maybe you’re the one trying to make light-hearted conversation. Maybe you’re the one pensively looking out the window, wondering when the next time you’ll get to see this view will be. You’re the one tallying up the events of your life so far, wondering whether they have prepared you for what is to come. And what is to come? It is hard to reign in your mind, to keep it from imagining the infinitude of things that could happen. It seems unfair to say people have an irrational fear of flying. It seems perfectly rational to focus on the concrete risks of flying rather than on the intangible terrors of The Next Thing. 

But airports do more than just contain stories; they section them. Be it the short beach episode of your vacation or the start of your Part II: A New Beginning, the airport forms a natural checkpoint for the beginning and end. There is a narrative satisfaction to it. It is no coincidence, I suppose, that the romantic cliché is to stop one’s partner at the airport.

— 

I remember the first night I landed in Toronto. I remember taking that first shaky breath as I stepped off the plane. The cool winter air felt crisp (although I suppose any air that had not been circling through a plane for the past 14 hours would have felt crisp). It is funny the way things hit you. The idea of me travelling to almost literally the other side of the world on my own had felt ridiculous, unreal even. It had taken my stepping off the plane and taking in the Canadian air for it to actually settle in. As I navigated through the airport, I could almost feel the page turn as a new chapter began in my life, and for some reason that felt quite reassuring. It wasn’t the old me facing the incoming challenges but a newer version of me, a newer version I could mould to handle these challenges. 

—

And I will admit that it is not always easy to love the airport. As with so many things of the modern world, they seem a mess of contradictions. They house arguably humanity’s greatest engineering feat. They allow us to conquer the skies, at regular intervals, thousands of times a day. And yet every time we do, we suffocate the world a little bit more. I can never decide whether to be amazed or disappointed by how small we’ve made the world, so that all possible destinations fit in a handful of screens. It can be mind-numbingly boring and tiring to wait for a plane that has already been delayed too many times. It is also terrifying to go through security, trying to remember whether you had somehow accidentally packed a knife, or god forbid, a bottle of water. Despite all this, I cannot help but love airports. I suppose it is as John Green wrote in reference to Canada geese: “With a song like a dying balloon and a penchant for attacking humans, the Canada goose is hard to love. But then again, so are most of us.”  I give airports four stars.