Jar Between Worlds

 Clink-clink-clink, marbles into a jar. One marble per country per person. Ringed fingers drop them in, fingers with pink nail polish, fingers with cracked knuckles. Young fingers, old ones. Clink-clink-clink, dropping marbles into the jar.

There are two light blue marbles, representing a vibrant land with beautiful people and a beautiful language. Their food is spicy and their roads are full of motorcycles. Thailand, the diamond of South East Asia.

Several dark green marbles fall into the jar, calling homage to an island home with jungles and coral reefs. They carry the memory of small prop planes and eating rice in dark rooms lit by generators. Indonesia and PNG, the necklace of the Pacific Ocean. 

There's one white marble representing the place of someone's birth. It's a reminder of beach holidays, crazy bus rides, and fishing in the street gutters. Myanmar, glittering tower of Asia. 

At the bottom of the jar are a handful of dark blue marbles, the biggest amount in the entire jar. They called to mind bustling cities and sprawling farmland. A rousing national anthem is held in this marble, calling to mind eagles and aspirations of freedom and prosperity. America the beautiful.

Clink. A single yellow marble is dropped into the jar. It tells tales of a lyrical language, of hot tropical nights and rain drumming on roofs. Ecuador the bold. 

Two red marbles with gold swirls sit nestled into the rest. They whisper about helicopters flying through the Harmattan dust, and the little pieces of Africa it held. The echoes of drumbeats ring as they clink against the other marbles. Cameroon, Africa in miniature.

An orange marble sits alone and watches the others, listening to their stories. They see the similarities between themselves and the others, but added stories about dirt roads and seat-belt-less car rides to the mix. The little marble reminds the others of their beautiful currencies and the beaches that their people enjoy. Cote d'Ivoire, the pearl of Africa.

Clink-clink-clink. The marbles are mixed together, stirred until they combine and rub against each other.

A careful observer sees the differences. A wise one asks questions and listens to the stories as they are shared, tales of lands exotic and beautiful. 

When you travel in an airport alone

 You can get away with more when you travel alone in an airport. You're surrounded by hundreds of other people, talking, moving, breathing, smiling, crying. Their lives touch yours for a second, bouncing into your periphery and then out again, as you do to theirs. You've been traveling for days, for minutes, for hours. Time is fluid, it doesn't exist, not in a place like this. Your body clock is off and you don't know what time it is anymore. It could be breakfast time, it could be dinnertime, it could be high noon. The light coming form the window helps little. You've been traveling across time zones at this point, and who really cares, anyway?

When you're traveling alone in an airport, you can sit by yourself on the ground. You can put your iced coffee on the small table next to you, pull out your laptop, and type away. You can watch the mobile that outlines the history of flight as it spins over the sushi-bar. There are blimps, and the space station, a model of the Wright's airplane, and a blue and gold hot air balloon. You can listen to the pianist as he plays, wondering what song he's playing this time but feeling like maybe you should know it. You can smile with him from afar as his tip jar slowly fills from the generosity of strangers and get lost with him as he closes his eyes and his nostrils flare, trying to capture the emotion and drama of it all. You can watch the pianist covertly, when you're alone at the airport. You can simply sit without consulting anyone else or having to worry about someone else's amusement. 

The pianist's bubble is bigger than the others here. Certainly bigger than yours from where you sit in the quiet with your laptop. He's touching everyone who sits nearby, who walks past him, and especially those who stop to talk to him. His hair falls over his forehead and into his eyes while he plays, looking a little older than he is, but as soon as someone stops to talk to him, he looks up and smiles, his boyish face matching his light blue bowtie. He changes the landscape around him with every note, as people flow past him like a river, some sitting on the far bank listening, and others standing near by, being more honest about their enjoyment. 

When you're traveling alone in the airport, you don't have to worry about your younger sibling crying, or someone needing food, or making sure you find a bathroom for your companion. There is no discussion about what food to get, or where to meet up, or even if it is time to take a break, stand up, and stretch our legs. You are your own master when you travel in an airport, deciding where you're going, and how you get there. Whether you will rush through it all, head down, closed off from everyone else. Whether you will meander through with your head up, paying attention to the life around you, making faces at small children, and winking at their parents. Or maybe you decide to find a comfortable place to sit and work on your computer for after all, this trip is for business, not pleasure, and the airport has free WiFi. Maybe this trip is one that has you spending too much money at the airport bar as you wait for your flight away from home...or maybe back to it. 

It is too easy to miss the joy of life in the bustle, when you're traveling alone in an airport. It's too easy to dismiss other's business for their own, or feel isolated and alone in this cacophony of bright lights and voices over the intercom. But maybe that is the beauty of traveling alone in the airport. For once you might be safe here, the safest you've ever been. No one judges you, when you travel alone in the airport. So sit on the floor, sip the ridiculously overpriced coffee, watch the cute pianist, eavesdrop on the couple breaking up over the phone, and enjoy it.