C11

I am at an airport again. How many hours have I spent in these sterile halls, staring out of windows, going through the motions of departure and arrival. There was a time, before the attacks on the towers, when your loved ones could come all the way to the mouth of the airplane to greet you. How many tears have been cried, how many laughs and desperate embraces at these gates. When I was eleven, and for the first time flying trans-Atlantic without my parents, the plane had an engine malfunction and we sat on the freezing tarmac of a Canadian military base for twelve hours. They showed us all the entertainment they could: two movies, instead of the usual one. They flew us down to New York for a new plane, it was my first time in the city and we could see the Statue of Liberty from the hotel window. 

From LaGuardia you can see most of the skyline when you wait for your plane. There's an April sun out, warming the skin as you walk and I wonder why I'm leaving. The winter of 2006 was the same way, people sun-tanning in New York while the rest of the country froze. He tells me he sleeps with the windows open and it's still too warm. 

When you sit at a gate

You want for nothing.