I like being in the airport because all the people here have a place to go. Everyone is moving. Everyone is active. And even when we are waiting on uncomfortable benches, on cold floors, and in busy shops, we are waiting only for a season. We all wait with purpose—a departure time, a gate number, a destination in mind.
The airport is a place people go while also being a place where people do not stay. No one lives here. No one builds a home in between terminals. The airport exists only for those who are passing through.
Everything feels ephemeral here.
And like on cue, I remembered about how the beginning and end of the movie A Real Pain (2024) felt so familiar to me. I found myself in the character of Benjamin “Benji” who seemed to have pondered about how everything is ephemeral.
Being in an airport feels like reading the synopsis of life: we come and we go. We are travelers here. And maybe that’s what draws me to airports—not the movement itself, but the reminder that movement is all we’ve ever been doing. We are always arriving, always leaving, always in transit between one thing and the next.
It makes me think how the uncomfortable benches don’t matter anymore. The cold floors don’t matter anymore. What matters is that everyone here knows they’re just passing through.
And so are we.
jessa 