I started writing this blog on the way home from the US over 4 months ago. The second half is current musings, the first was from back then. Not that I think you can tell the difference. They general theme is my passion for Airports.

I'm sitting in the airport on my way home from being home. I went to the US this week for my best friend's wedding, and I'm heading back to Beirut-- to my "normal" life.

What is it about Airports that I love so much? It'd be impossible to put my finger on: I love the coffee, but it’s never that good and it’s always expensive. I love the people watching, but it’s a toss up whether it will result in a short-term airport crush (some REALLY handsome Italian men, I must say) or disgust with the Ugly Americans (why are we all so freaking loud?)

One thing I can't get over, though, is how small it makes the world. When I boarded my last flight at JFK, I was standing in line behind a young Orthodox Jewish man. He was dressed in the traditional garb of the Israeli settlers-- an outfit I have come to know very well and love much less. It involves black slacks and sports coat, white button down shirt, and some large top hat. Think Fiddler on the Roof here, and don't forget the long beard and strings hanging from the undershirt that are visible halfway down the leg. Someone explained what they were to me at one point—I think it’s a scratchy undershirt that reminds them to think piously at all times—but I can’t be exactly sure and certainly wouldn’t want to feign expertise.

My flight from New York touched down in Milan, where I had a direct flight to Beirut after a long security process and a short croissant-filled layover. Waiting for the flight to Beirut was surreal: we sat quietly at B24, and it didn’t take anyone long to realize that the flight out of B25 was bound for Tel Aviv. For anyone who knows about the relationship between these two capitals—the years of occupation, the recent bloody massacres, the unending tension and animosity—the irony is impossible to disregard. And yet, I swear, I seemed like the only person who noticed. Here we have Lebanese and Israelis, sitting side by side in common awkward harmony. Everyone is waiting, everyone is quickly bored with the designer handbag kiosk in the middle of the waiting area, everyone is balancing their children on their hips and their carry-ons on their knees, everyone is sleepy and ready to go home.

It’s just that, in spite of the short 200 miles that separates their respective homes, none of these people would ever even consider knowing or meeting each other in any setting other than an airport terminal. Unreal.

I know a lot of people despise airports. I can’t properly explain how different I feel toward them. If I had to really face my feelings, I’d be forced to admit that they are quite possibly my favorite indoor place in the whole world. They are portals of freedom, havens of humanity, blotches of in-between that are so vaporous and intangible and transient and surreal. Think about going to the same airport time and time again: you would never see the same people or smell the same smells. You would have the same flight patterns, the same hotdog stand, the same bathroom location and Starbucks pound cake, but different populations entirely.

Different stories—it’s the stories. Each individual person is going somewhere unique; you have no idea but all you have to do is scratch the soft chalky surface to discover a world that ends in the Congo or Macau or a Polynesian Island or Cincinnati.

I love everything about them, and I’m not ashamed.

I love the heartache. I do, and it’s OK for me to say that because I have had heaps of it there myself. I love the backpackers. I love the kids racing down the halls with their parents, trying to catch the flight. I love the variety of food: coffee burgers and salads and coffee and fudge shops and health-nut stores and coffee and pubs. I love the time-zones, the luggage, the vast spaces covered in marble and carpet and tile and chairs. I love the timelessness that lasts until the minute you start to worry that you missed your flight. I love the feeling that you’re all a big family, cozy and wrapped up together in the den of transience. I love the breakfasts—at all times—and the pints that you can sip luxurious because its not like you can do anything with sobriety in the first place. I love the announcements and the departures screen, the lipstick and heels on the female attendance, the cologne and ties on the male pilots. I love the anticipation of a pretzel-filled flight, whether it transits with time-zones and French movies or finds you on a small propeller flight 45 minutes between DC and Charlotte. I love the names DC and Charlotte. I love the carpet in the miniature Columbia Airport: its covered in Palmetto Trees, the symbol of South Carolina.

Soak it in, when you can. Soak in the change in the air and the sadness and the excitement. There’s no place else in the world like an airport: whether youre looking at it from a geopolitical perspective, a sensory perspective, or simply a human perspective. They are insights into our society, our humanity, our world. They are gems that should be appreciated and never dreaded: only anticipated in the sense of wholehearted acceptance of the deeply human agony or joy that they represent.