Finding grace in airports

When you travel by plane, you spend time, of course, in airports. That time can be expeditious, frustrating, wearying and, sometimes, a ball wrecker of plans. We all have stories.

There’s another side to that time spent in airports. It’s one of the few places where you can see, at least in larger airports, a cross section of humanity. And, if you’re not in a rush, where you can observe them closely.

I see all sorts. Single businessmen walking determinedly, speaking earnestly to their cell phones, saying the Most Important Things. College kids slouched in chairs wrapped in earphones, snacks strewn about, intently gazing at their phone screens.

A group traveling together all wearing the same unavoidable T-shirts.

And families.

I see young families. Some look breathtakingly young. They have one, two, three children, one of them maybe three weeks old. They have their retinue of carriages, tote bags, snacks, diaper bags and God knows what else, in that half-insane idea of flying from one place to another together.

I think back to the time when my wife and I had a young child, and a wave of nostalgia and protectiveness comes over me. It’s a small-smile moment for me, accompanied by wistfulness and thoughts of how rapidly time—yes, I’m in an airport—flies.

I remember what it’s like being a young parent. It takes a great deal of patience and teamwork to make this traveling with a family work. Sometimes the parents are not too good to one another; they’re perfunctory. That’s hard to see. But more often than not, the parents are good to each other. They’re a team.

The other day I was in the Dallas Airport on a layover on my way back home. Terminal C. Lots of travelers. I was seated at a table eating my Shake Shack burger looking at a young couple at the next table.

They had two kids. One was a little girl in a carriage. I didn’t see the other kid at first. Then the mother raised it up, a baby, hugged it, then held it high. She put the baby back and sat down across from a man who I assumed was her husband. They were both young. (What’s young? I hardly know anymore.) They were eating and talking about something and then pausing to talk to their older kid. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, even with discretionary straining. I wish I could have.

Then the mother laughed. It was a genuine laugh—you always know—full of delight. An open laugh. Uninhibited. From the heart. The best kind. It was a laugh prompted by I don’t know what, but I would think by something her husband said. Her laugh went right into me, charging me, instantly, with a heady dose of optimism. A couple. With two kids. Happy with each other, and the mom laughing. She looked so lovely.

“There are nice things in the world," Buddy tells Franny in J.D. Salinger’s Zooey, “and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get sidetracked.”

I could’ve watched them all day.