Purgatorial Passage

The Smoking Lounge
Atlanta international airport
Waiting to go home
1:50 there, 2:50 here
Saturday, December 11, 2004

Purgatorial Passage

I think that the smoking room of airports might be the most despondent place of cross-country traveling. Not wanting to take off my shoes, coat, purse, baggage again, I’m not venturing into the outdoors. Instead, I sit amongst the smoke and muse, letting the soft gurgle of southern accents wash around me, a gentle stream of softened consanants.

I’m halfway home, so as always, it’s time for quarterly reflections.

All things considered, this was a good one. Much debauchery true, but much learning, growing, and letting go as well. Not only have I learned to live as an independent person, I have learned what it’s like to be in college and not in a relationship.

I enjoy the flux of people in here. The strained, yet happy college kids – sleepy, yet finished with school, lugging full backpacks towards their own beds, their proud parents and food that doesn’t give them digestive problems.

The airport workers who know each other, chat amicably and are the only souls that don’t seem displaced, jet lagged, and hasseled.

The families that congregate near the smoking room are the strangest. The parents started smoking before smoking was deadly, and don’t see a reason to quit now, so they sit near the exit and keep an eye on the kids. These children are used to this and swarm around the entrance (because you have to be of age to enter this den of vice), playing and desperately trying to get out of eyesight before that blessed nicotine calms their parents nerves. I’m not sure if I could handle traveling with kids. Once my own enter the picture, I will train them in the art of efficient transits.

There’s the army dudes that shouldn’t be smoking, the people who are obviously on lay over and spending the duration in here. Most people sit down and calling loved ones – reassuring themselves that once they leave this purgatory, home will still be there. Old ladies in white keds, single-serving friendships, frosted hair, runny make-up, bags of Christmas cheer. A handful of individuals that hastily form a transient, ever shifting group. And of course, the occasional passerby stops to lecture us on respitory health, unaware that, as he is not a member of our exclusive club, their presence is resented. Give us these stolen moments of peace.

Let me describe this horrific oasis. It feels like there was a bit of unused space between the overpriced stores that don’t have to follow the rules of modern commerce since they exist in this artifical economy. So, they put a glass front on this space, didn’t bother to put in a ceiling, threw together some random chairs – probably saved from a dumpster after renovations. Movable island-like ashtrays stake out cylindrical space on the grubby tile floor, and people converge around them. Pipes, badly hung lights, wire, insulation and other dangerous looking things snake from the ceiling – an eyesore for the weary folk that blow their carcinogens upwards.

And me. Smartly dressed, backpack bulging to the brim, typing and smoking. I do think I cut quite a figure today: black skirt that fits snuggly on the hips, but flares out around my knees – perfect for lindy hop. My black fuck me boots, tights, and the most delicious cream sweater, cabled of course. For warmth I wear the long camel colored trench Jaynie gave me, and my fake black pashmina. Make-up and coffee cover the hangover, and I refuse to even think about sleep. Lauren insists that not matter what I do, I have ceased to look Southern, and I fear she may be right.

More people stumble in, drop their belongs, and with a happy sign, begin the rather frantic search for something to sooth their nerves. Time for me to smoke another.

The closer I get to home, the bigger the hair gets, the softer the consonants. Time to find my gate, a restroom, a beverage, and another outlook.