The Kissing Gate
An Airport Journey Went As Far As The Gate, And This Is What I Learned
Travel takes us away for a few days. Maybe a few weeks. Home closes its doors and we excite in the unknown.
This week, my message is not going to sound like my normal podcast topics, or plant and bird banter. In fact, there is no podcast this week. But I felt the need to write this anyway…
As I write this, I am not on a trip. I just came from an airport. But I wasn’t arriving or departing. I had no suitcase handle to grab hold of. I was actually walking the terminals as a host in essence. I was away from home, but without a ticket to travel other than barcodeless “airport hall pass” taking our exchange student back home.
It was an odd sensation to see people coming and people going…with bags and roller bags. And I? A wallet and a passport. A magazine in my bag I never read, and a clementine I never ate. Despite my tidy belongs and the freedom from weight, the feeling I had was not of freedom. It was something else. And I had no ticket. No destination like everyone else.
Travel is with good intent. It broadens you. You experience new things. It may even make you appreciate places or things about your own home that you had lost touch with or forgotten about. Travelling for the most part, allows you to leave some of your normal responsibilities on hold and your suitcase becomes your confidant. A connection to familiar belongings, but also your gateway to new places. The handle on our bag is our strength, as we clutch it with great fortitude. We tie bright ribbons on it to make it ours, and ours alone.
Just as much as we anticipate the excitement of a new location, we simultaneously long for home at the same time. But I was not going anywhere, and I was not leaving home. And I did not have a suitcase like everyone else. So what was I learning while walking inside the long, glass-lined terminal?
If the terminal floor had grains, I was certainly going against it. Even though I wasn’t technically going anywhere, the experience was nonetheless broadening. I had to not get lost as I was the solo navigator in this situation. I have become accustomed to traveling with my family, where I was always going with the flow. Here, I was the flow. And with that I knew I couldn’t afford to get lost. I did circle the entire terminal before finding the parking garage. Mistake number one. I couldn’t afford another one.
My teenage exchange student did not know that I was probably more nervous than she was. Being alone in an airport is not something I am much familiar with. My guest actually seemed more in tune with our surroundings…she spotted our bags coming down the security check even before I did. And she had her own boarding pass already on her phone.
I actually did not hesitate when my daughter asked to host an exchange student earlier this year. But at the time I did not think that I would be learning something from the experience as well. And it was not just how to navigate an airport. It was more than that. Even though I went to an airport (twice) but I didn’t travel, there were still plenty of lessons. My mind was spinning around thoughts just as many times as all the small wheels were spinning on the little bags that rolled past me.
So many little life moments are sprinkled around our day to day that prepare us for something else later. But we often don’t see it or notice it.
While everyone’s end goal in an airport is to go somewhere, mine was simply to help someone. My journey with them began at a gate and ended at a gate: I was not allowed through. The airport version of a livestock kissing gate. No doubt she barely needed me along the security check or through the long terminal walk.
And then it hit me when I watched another mother and her older daughter reunite at the edge of the boarding area nearby. At some point, in the not so distant future, I will be walking my own daughter off to a gate and letting her go. Maybe it is off to college. Or maybe 4 years after that, in a location change. And I will be in the same situation: my departure ends squarely at the kissing gate.
My job was to walk as far as my pass would allow. I was a parent to an additional teenager for a week as they navigate a bridge that will lead to high school. And soon after that, the next bridge will come along, each year slowly preparing them for the next journey.
So many little life moments are sprinkled around our day to day that prepare us for something else, yet maybe we don’t see it or notice it. Once her plane left the jetway, my walk to the car was full of memories of the times at our house. And as I walked along following signs for baggage claim, just like everyone else…I learned that not every journey has to have a destination. It’s simply the journey itself where you learn the most.
In the very near future, I will visit an airport again, but this time I will have a suitcase. My journey will take me south to the islands of the Galapagos. And I am excited to walk through that gate with my family. I will have my hand on my backpack with it’s bright purple ribbon.
