Airports

This morning, I rose punctually at 6:00 instead of hitting the snooze, changed the cat litter, dragged the trash can to the curb—even though it won’t be emptied until Thursday and will probably sit abandoned in the street for a week or more until I return—took one last look around the house, although I have no idea what I was looking for,  and finally deposited my battered duffel bag and my college backpack in the back seat of my truck in preparation for the drive to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. This is standard procedure; I fly to Minnesota every winter, and preparing to be absent for a week looks more or less the same every time. Sure, my trip to Minnesota has been from a few different states (California, Texas), airports (Bush, Hobby, LAX), and domiciles (apartment, then house, then apartment, then house again), but despite these apparent changes, it’s always the same: provide for the cats, lock the door, drive to the airport. Such is the life of a single man, I suppose.  Returning next week will have the appearance of watching this morning’s events on a surveillance camera while holding down the rewind button: drive back to the house, unlock the door, take care of the cats’ various food/water/litter needs, return to work and daily life. Luckily, I expect my week in Minnesota to bring relaxation, time with my family, and a complete lack of graduate school. Sadly, I can’t leave work behind; the aforementioned grad school, combined with my own complete lack of time-management skills and impulse control, has left me with quite a stack of essays that need my attention. Between merrymaking, ice fishing, drinking Canadian whiskey, and frosting cookies, I’ll have to find some time to remedy various crimes against the English language perpetrated by my sophomores.

That’s not what I sat down to write about, though. In fact, I don’t really know what purpose that paragraph will serve. Ah, well. On I go, dutifully assailing the keyboard.

A moment ago—the moment just before I opened my laptop, in fact—I had an odd and somewhat terrifying experience of not knowing, just for a moment, where I was. It’s got to be the environment here at gate A12 crossing up my neural signals. I know I’m in Houston, but as I sat here for the last couple of hours, the typical airport hubbub has totally engulfed me. I’m surrounded by people drinking coffee from disposable cups, overhead speakers instructing me not to let anyone put a bomb in my backpack, overdressed slicksters shouting boardroom nonsense into their Bluetooth headsets without the first clue that they look like crazy street preachers, abandoned copies of USA Today, elderly people with a look of distrust and dread in their eyes, as though they’re really not sure whether this whole aeroplane business is really safe. It’s the same experience I’ve had at every airport I’ve ever flown into or out of. They’re all the same. Even in Frankfurt and Munich, the only noticeable difference is that the chatter contains a few unfamiliar sounds and the newspapers don’t care what Republicans think about Obama. At an airport, there’s almost no discernable sign of what city lies outside the glass. The people, sounds, coffee shops, and announcements that surround me now are the same ones I’ll encounter when I get off the plane in Minneapolis. Or Denver. Or Atlanta. Or Los Angeles. In fact, Delta could fly me to the wrong airport entirely, and I probably wouldn’t even realize it until I walked all the way through the airport and found that my parents weren’t waiting to pick me up at the curb.

So. For just a moment, about fifteen minutes ago, I had no idea where I was…and I realized that airports are not places. It seems to me that a place should have some kind of defining characteristics. After all, a spot in the ocean that’s 300 miles east of Boston doesn’t have a different name than a spot in the ocean that’s 150 miles east of New York. They’re both just “the ocean.” For all practical purposes, they’re exactly the same, except to oceanographers, marine biologists, and fish. That being said, maybe I shouldn’t say that airports are not places; instead, maybe they’re all the same place.

It’s a bizarre and unsettling phenomenon. How can one place be in more than one place? The sheer ridiculousness of the question is trumped only by the fact that while it seems impossible, it’s happening all around us. Now that I’m thinking about it, I realize that when I get off the airplane in Minneapolis, my parents will drive me out of the city along a highway lined with McDonalds, Starbucks, PetsMarts, Citgos, Wal-Marts, and Office Depots. Minneapolis is, in many ways, the same city as Houston. The same litany of clean, well-lighted places we’d pass in nearly every major city in America. I could be anywhere in the country and get some McNuggets when I’m hungry, go to Walgreen’s when I need batteries, and drive through Starbucks if I’m in the mood for a cup of overpriced coffee. The mall in Norfolk is made up of the same stores as the one in Seattle, and the Target in San Jose uses the same floor plan as the one in Sarasota. None of them are places, in the sense of having defining characteristics. Or rather, each Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walgreens, and shopping mall in America is the same place as each of its brethren. Our cities, then, made up of one after another of these non-places, almost become non-places themselves—one enormous megalopolis of neon signs and fluorescent lights.

Almost.

This is why I love little out-of-the-way restaurants and eclectic mom-and-pop stores. These are places, and I visit them whenever I’m nearby. In St. Cloud, my favorite place is a book store in old downtown. In Kansas City, it’s Korma Sutra Indian restaurant. In Duluth, I always visit Russ Kendall’s Smokehouse and The Anchor Bar and Grill. In Austin, I never miss a chance to visit High Ball. San Bernardino is home to a fantastic series of thrift shops and junk stores. Even Los Angeles, that great plastic wasteland, has Tommy’s Burgers. Here in town, we have The Dixie Chicken, Revolution, The Village Café, and Earth Art.

I can only get an Anchor Burger at The Anchor, and I can only bowl in a retro-1950s alley when I’m at High Ball…and I like it that way. These places—real, genuine places—give their cities life, personality, and identity. Much of their value lies in the fact that they are singular, without franchises, branches, or Second Locations Coming Soon. I don’t get excited about visiting Applebee’s, but I’m like a kid on Christmas morning as I approach Russ Kendall’s.

These places, for me, are opportunities for discovery. Every time I walk into a small, privately owned business, there’s a strong possibility I’ll find something on the menu I’ve never eaten before, notice a rare book that I could never have predicted, or meet an interesting proprietor who’s genuinely happy to have my business. That just doesn’t happen at Target. Or T.G.I. Friday’s. Or Barnes and Noble. Browsing shelves of items I never expected to find, chatting with shopkeepers, and learning that I love (or hate) some bizarre new dish are learning experiences. They broaden my mind and my world. They truly are moments of wonder and joy.

So. If you ask me where I’d like to go for dinner, a drink, or some window-shopping, don’t be surprised if I suggest something unfamiliar. I’m always on the hunt for new places, and I’d like to introduce you to some of them, too.

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