The Airport

I went to the airport on Monday, and for the first time in ages I wasn't the one leaving. Instead I saw seeing a good friend off to her native Indonesia. And while saying goodbye was sad, the place itself, the endless desks, huffy guards, clicking of high heels and squeals of luggage rollers, the smell of bad airport food and duty free perfume, the pushing and shoving and finally that last hug, it churned up a host of other memories, other airports, other times, other lifetimes. If I hadn't gone out there to JFK I probably wouldn't have reflected on my own departures and arrivals in this journey.

It reminded me that life is a continium of burying and rediscovering, rejecting and reclaiming, loss and gain. These cycles take place in the human heart, and can not be accessed on purpose. Try as you might to meditate on that which is most important to you every evening, if you didn't do anything during the day you'll find your soul is as empty as your cubicle- your inner you is a reflection of your outer expereince. I found that you have to go out and experience life, wherever it may take you, in order to have roughage to chew on when you do get down to meditate. You can't search an empty room. You have to fill it first, fill it with experiences. And in that sense you have to let life take you, and make opportunities of the randomness.

At the same time, your outer life is a reflection of your inner you. If your inner self is tarnished or tainted, so is your world, no matter where you are. Purifying yourself helps to clean the world you live in and move forward. When your soul is clear you'll find that although life does indeed take you places, the places you go will be nicer and nicer. So in a sense, when I went to the airport, I didn't have to go anywhere, because the moment took me to a dozen other airports- Bishkek, Istanbul, Vienna, Tashkent, Madison, Logan, and back to JFK. Reflecting on those airports will take several days, if not months. But it will insure that my next real flight is in the right direction.