I studied a book during my first year at Denison. Specific quotes elude me, but the book was called Imagined Communities and it was written by Benedict Anderson. The most Spark Notes-esque version I can give you of this book comes down to one simple point: Geographic boundaries (and on a more abstract level, differences, and disagreements that divide us, but specifically geographic boundaries) are imaginary. They are a human creation and just an idea.
This beautiful overarching unity is seen clearer nowhere else but at airports.Airports have always fascinated me. Being an international student, venturing through them pretty often has only made this fascination grow.
Walking around a huge building surrounded by people who may or may not be exactly (or not so exactly) like you. People you’ve never seen before and will probably never see again. I like to think of airports as the sprinkler shakers of the world. Each traveler in the airport, a unique sprinkle. Soon, you will all be sprinkled, scattered all over the world to your different destinations. Just like the sprinkles, you are unique in some way or the other but are perfectly capable of functioning with other sprinkles peacefully. You're a sprinkle. Others are sprinkles. So just be sprinkles.
“That sounds cool!” I hear you say So what goes on in this bottle of soon to be flying sprinkles? For the brief moments of waiting for your flight, the duration of your layover, or the sprint to your gate when time gets the better of you, you are part of the Airport; a small, fully functioning mini-society, walled off from the outside world (how else could Tom Hanks have lived a life there in The Terminal )ll society whose members come from all over the world, soon to travel to different Airports and become a part of that particular society. Every time a flight takes off, or a previously unseen foot, a different person, walks its way into an Airport, the population of this ever-evolving society has changed, whether you know it or not. You know nothing of anything about anyone who may be entering or exiting the airport at any given second, and you probably don't pay any mind to it either. Everyone just goes about living their life, moving around before they need to board their flight. Whether that includes drinking coffee, eating a sandwich panicking about an upcoming semester, or just being alone with your thoughts. You function just fine at an airport where everyone is different from you in some way, and you don't know anyone intimately at all, but you're perfectly fine.
Despite any differences you may have, differences of race, religious beliefs, favorite foods, history, culture, understanding of the world, level of interest in current events and whether or not you think cappuccinos are overrated drinks, everyone is equal at an airport. It’s truly a place where you realize that geographical boundaries are as intangible and imaginary as the cultural, religious, and ideological differences that have divided us for so many years.
Yes indeed, inhabitants of an airport are united all throughout by the fact that you have a destination. Anyone with somewhere to be can either enter or exit. In the space of the airport, it may not matter to you who’s going where, but when within the Airport City Limits (the walls of the airport), everyone functions like an informed citizen of the Airport, regardless of going through the motions that unite us all. These could be any of the following and several, several more:
1. Checking screens for departure times.
2. Talking to (at least thinking of) friends, family and loved ones,
3. Bustling around at your own pace, thinking about your destination, whether it’s a campus, a camp, a holiday or even an emergency
4. Juggling a multitude of documents, or coolly presenting a phone screen to grant yourself access to a particular pocket or corner of the world, which you will enter once you exit the gates of that Airport Society.
5. Waiting in designated areas for pre-determined flights
6. Laughing obnoxiously (or fantastically) loudly.
7. Just doing you
In these ways, the airport reminds me a lot of a bustling city, an environment I grew up in and have lived in most of my life. It’s in own society, with its own customs, procedures and even language that its inhabitants understand or begin to understand by just being at the Airport.
We all have places to be. Shuffling through security, removing shoes, walking through detectors, handling boarding passes to officials, our ears instinctively perking up when we hear that instantly recognizable sound that can only be described as the “kssshhh” of the public address (PA) system before an announcement is made: "Pre-boarding has begun", "...proceed to security check", "Will the owner of the complete box series of Seinfeld, please come and claim it from the information desk before someone else does?"
We understand all these little instructions too. We understand them together and perform them together, like a well-oiled machine. In particular, a well-oiled machine where all the parts get along well and don't dislike each other for essentially pointless, harmless differences. Everyone in the airport is and let's be.As you travel, moving to new places, being completely alone in a complex maze of a building in a foreign country, you get used to it. You learn to adapt to different places (different airports too), different time zones, different food, lack of connectivity, being away from and close to those you love; in essence, to adapt. To adapt to wherever you are. To adapt to any place or situation, and come out a human being who lives and lets live. To adapt to just doing you, and to adapt to letting others live their lives. And finally, like a sign on vending machine at Heathrow taught me so well, adaptors end up the happiest (or at least they seem like they have wide smiles on).
You're a sprinkle. Others are sprinkles. So just be sprinkles.
