Arrivals

Waiting for people in airports puts me in a strange state. Watching people reconnect puts the lump in my throat, remembering the feeling of relief of seeing someone you haven't seen in years, while realizing my party has yet to meet me starts to make me nervous and fidgety. I used the white courtesy phone once, feeling antique, wrapping the springing cord worriedly around my wrist. Eventually, we found each other. The kids were taller; Sara looked tired but serene from her 12 hour flight.

It seems that I've entered the phase of my life when the only time I see people any more is on layovers. Everyone living so far away, everyone with a plane ticket somewhere, stopping through on their way to their next destination. I'll be in New York for a few hours; want to meet up? And so we seize every minute we can.

I packed a picnic in my Frida Kahlo bag, colorful blankets, Nutella sandwiches in wax paper, punnets of apricots and cherries. "Plenty of choking hazards and stain potential for the kids," I told Sara. And we headed for the beach.

The kids chased seagulls, collected seashells. They splashed and made sand mounds and wanted to show us things. We dipped our toes in the ocean and talked about her life in Cairo, and my life here. An ocean apart.

"Ooo it's cold!" Sara shrieked. "That's one major difference between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean." We tucked up our skirts and waded deeper, letting the waves smack us high up above the knees, holding the kids' hands as the sand slipped out from beneath our feet in the undertow.

Once the jellyfish started to expose their dangerous, glistening bodies on the surface of the sand, and the kids started to feel the weight of a different kind of sand in their eyes, we headed back. The kids slept on the train. Sara said she thinks she belongs in a beach house somewhere. Barefoot with sand between her toes, skirt hiked up above her knees in the water. I can picture her there.

I would visit her there.

And then they're gone. I left them in the security line, the little one talking excitedly of seeing grandma and grandpa. Headed elsewhere.

I walked out of the chaos of the Delta terminal and took the train two stops to Terminal 5. I climbed the stairs to the top of the parking garage, where the sun scares cars away from its delineated spaces. The empty lot hissed at me from all corners; I felt threatened and alone, and also excited, as if I might get caught. At the edge, I could see the old terminal, its sexy curves and colored glass from a different, sexy era of travel. Before this transient practical phase, when a visit lasts just a few hours, a pit stop. I watched a plane take off over the building's gentle curves, imagining the gently curving expressions on the faces of the people waiting to greet its passengers on the other side.

Sometimes we can't imagine where we'll end up, at what distance from each other. How much time we'll have with each other in between. And so we seize every minute we can.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.