I was at the airport. You know the place. That long sound-tunnel of clicking heels, buzzing wheels, climate control and chicken salad croissants priced at the going rate per-diem.
There were a thousand people scattered around the terminal. They stood, heads bowed to their phones. They sat, heads bowed to their phones. Or they dozed, eyes closed, listening to their phones. Maybe Ke$ha’s “Tik-Tok,” maybe Marc Maron’s new podcast, WTF. It was 2010.
I had my phone, too, and everything else I needed to fly to D.C. to meet my wife for a short vacation. I was confident that I hadn’t forgotten anything, but I double checked my stuff anyway.
Phone, check.
Clothes, check
Wallet, boarding pass, toothbrush, check, check, check.
An immutable sense of self, lived and built for thirty years … Wait … It had to be around here somewhere.
Only it wasn’t. I was in an airport, in which all human experience is soluble.
I’m forty now and have all the more momentum behind what should be a pretty well-realized identity. Yet, since I was twenty and made my first solo trip (it was to Italy for an art project. Yes, I am uncommonly lucky), every time I set out somewhere distant, alone, I lose track of that identity and begin to imagine myself as someone else, my life as something else. My name, my talents, all of it gets a new narrative, often two or three. Think of it as a brief mid-life crisis, only less troublesome.
After all, I’m out of my element, in a place of transition. I’ve left my identity behind. I’ve left my kids at my folks’ house, my wife is three hours away and my minivan is abandoned in the parking structure.
I’m in this new space, this place between here and there. And I see it as a world bursting with potential and possibilities. As I look around, these people could be anyone, and to them, so could I. So why not? I am a stranger among strangers, and the anonymity is liberating. I have had more rewarding, introspective and explorative time spent in airports, in crowded solitude, than in meditative hours at home, or quiet walks down the Ice Age Trail. And I have had more fun there than I probably should have.
“Hey.” (This is me, a stranger approaching a stranger.)
“Hey.” (This is the guy in the cool charcoal suit and shiny shoes.)
“Your suit is really business-y. Are you traveling for work or just for really sharp, tailored fun?”
“Yeah, I’m on business.”
“What do you do?”
“Oh, I’m in consulting. You?”
“Me? I design and build non-lethal obstacle courses for television ninja competitions and tough-mud triathlons. And I make lethal courses for special operations training and team-building retreats.”
“Whoa, really?”
See, super fun. I only wish he had asked me for my name, because I had a good one all queued up, Lagarto Brevemente. He’s from Catalonia.
And that guy might not have even been in consulting. I’ll never know. He might have been trying on a different self like he would a flawlessly fitted seersucker in summer. I just realized I should have asked him his name. Maybe it was, Tom, Tom … Bordingnow, or Marcel Skymiles. Missed opportunities. Oh well.
It’s not all chuckles, though. Without thinking, I have tried on selves that were shallow and callous. I’ve tried on selves that were remorseful, regretting and bitter. Sometimes, memories and wonderings about roads not traveled, or traveled too slowly, lead me to gloomy minutes waiting for my boarding group to be called. I still think it’s for the good, though.
I think a little sadness in solitude is as proper as finding comfort and cheer. And when I find my way back home, where things are not just recognizable, but familiar and comforting, I find myself again, my real self. And it is a relief and a great joy to continue, after all that nonsense, to be the father to my kiddos, the husband to my wife and captain of my minivan.
– Micah Clarke