Sunday, September 28, 2014

Dispatch from Chicago O'Hare


I'm in the Chicago airport. I've had a wonderful weekend with two friends from college. I've been here for five hours -- in this airport -- waiting for a plane to take me back to LAX. I've had lunch. I've walked back and forth through the tunnel connecting Terminal B and C. It's maybe cooly futuristic and maybe anesthetizing in the worst way. I've had popcorn. I've had a scoop of coffee ice-cream. I've had a foot massage in a weird little airport spa. The masseur was an enormous Michael Jordan lookalike, which might have been exciting were it not for my slightly unshaved legs. I've had a beer in a bar. Evidently,  there's a football game that I'm ignoring. I hate football. I've been reading. I read this in the wonderful novel "We Are Not Ourselves" by Matthew Thomas:

Life, she thought, was like that sometimes; for years, things were a certain way, and then, in an instant, almost without conscious thought, they weren't that way any longer, as if all the hidden pressure on their having been the way they'd been had found release through a necessary valve.

Evidently our plane is leaving within the hour. So it goes.

10 comments:

  1. Oh dear! I just now heard that 600 flights were cancelled today between the two airports. It could be another two weeks before schedules get back to normal. My husband, thank goodness, returned from Poland yesterday with only a 30 minute delay!! I hope you get out soon.

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  2. This is a little like what I wrote tonight- how, in suddenly admitting who we really are, things can and will change and that the energy freed up by that admission can be amazing.
    May your flight leave soon.
    May your life, if it changes, be even better, be a fulfillment of dreams which you have possibly not even admitted dreaming.

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  3. Ooh, I like that quote. I'll find the book.

    I find that travel itself is becoming a respite for me. Time on an airplane, or in an airport, where I have no responsibilities.

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  4. I love you and Sophia matter what or where. Change can be good if you want it. Peace from Alabama..

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  5. Ugh - Chicago of all places! Enjoy your book and the quiet. All of my travel horror stories involve small children so I'm jealous of your foot massage and lovely book. Hope you get home safely and soon.

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  6. I wish you had posted sooner. I would have come and gotten you and taken you somewhere fabulous for dinner. Saranellos? I guess that sound creepy but you would have finally been able to meet "your anonomys commenter"

    Sorry about your delay.

    Your anonymous commenter.

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  7. Well it sounds like you have certainly maximized your time at the airport! I got a massage at an airport once, and I had to end it early because I heard something about my flight announced over the loudspeakers. (Turns out it was cancelled.) I have since decided that airports are not the place for massages, because you can't truly relax having to stay on top of the vagaries of airline travel.

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  8. I hope by now you are safely home in bed. I'm glad you had a wonderful time with friends. That is a stunning quote. It makes me happy that it speaks to you right now. And this post is going to make me rethink time in airports!

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  9. That photo is incredible! Safe travels!!

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