Missive from terminal A11

Missive from Terminal A11

Much of today has been spent in idle but attentive sitting and reflecting. BWI terminal A11 offers little else to do. A flight delay has kept us here three hours. Having no wireless, except Boingo for which there is a charge and involves sign up procedures, it is nice to simply think and watch. These moments of apparently useless time, I am convinced, offer special opportunity to register usually unappreciated aspects of our world, seen through the eyes of leisure than those of the usual frenetic workday. Best not to protest these random intrusions into ones schedule. Being irritated at the delay just ruins what might be nicely spent down time. I am waiting for the down time to seem nicely spent.

A plane part has to be fixed or obtained. Not much is really explained by the over head announcements, and no one seeks a better explanation. The other passengers? They are a mellow and polite group, only voicing their discontent when talking on cell phones. One will chat now and then. There are careful rules for airport conversation that make talk almost a form of work. One must keep boundaries and not venture any comment that might reveal or offend, or even attract the attention of nearby listeners by being too
 excited. These are truly conversations that will blow away with the wind, given that you are unlikely to ever see that person again.

You can take brief walks away from the terminal to explore, with a niggling feeling that even though the flight is delayed for at least two more hours, it will leave as you are browsing magazines.  Or you can float slowly along the motorized walkway, looking around, registering the passengers, strangers to you and mostly to each other-- people viewed without context, without any idea of their personality, past, home city,role, job or family. Pure visuals, without the benefit that familiarity gives to those we know—that softening of of physical and sartorial peculiarities with which we generously gift to longer known acquaintances. Humans devoid of self in a mechanized settings.

Going for coffee at the nearby Starbucks is an option, but as the option becomes repeated as the hours wear on the growing feeling is of caffeinosis and that the extra stimulation, two or three cups plus whatever they gave you on the first flight will spiral ones mild flying anxiety into a full blown panic attack.

How might a painter handle this airport? How might the painter Bruegel, famous for, say, his panorama of dancing townsfolk at a wedding, render terminal A11. Maybe there would be a myriad of plump figures in Bermuda shorts, t-shirts, sandals, and sunglasses, sitting, talking, complaining, fooling with IPADS. Some might be stumbling while chasing children, or eating pretzels. And in the corner, very small, one small bespectacled figure typing on a small pink Hewlett Packard netbook. Or Rembrandt? Maybe a dark figure in a Yankees blouse, clutching a boarding pass, turning into the dark chiarascuro of an oversold fligh

Most travelers are quiet--eye contact shows a measured friendliness.   Exceptions are a youngish man having trouble locating his son arriving on a flight, and exchanging words with the ticketeer, the latter finally shouting, “Act like a father,” a strangely presumptuous comment from an airport employee. A much older man who was so tall he looked microcephalic seemed to blaming his wife for the plane's delay, eliciting many “tsks tsks” from those nearby. And finally, one woman, perhaps seventy and from Europe, chastised a Southwest employee ticketeer for being stuck in the sad town of Baltimore, and he, in turn carefully defended his home tow

Final note. It seems that all directions given overhead (and on flights) now has to be peppered with witty or irreverent remarks. Is this company policy meant to illustra te just how maverick and unconventional an airline Southwest is. Some Southwest employees struggle with the humor,. And after a number of these class clown type comedy routines about seat belts or airbags, it was pleasant to hear the firm, old fashioned authoritative captains voice during touchdown giving instructions in straightforward English. But he succumbed at the end, finally telling passengers that now that the trip was over to “Get out.” 

\