Shouldn't…but Do

Lightning over the airfield delayed the flight.  A line of thunderstorms moving east.

Airports are interesting places.  Architecture that supports carriage of transient, generic humanity.  Generations daily enter, depart, and arrive – processed.

Delays are common, expected, and generally accepted among the strangers who temporarily populate airports.

One woman left Korea early that day, a young man returning to Amsterdam, a woman with moving vans arriving next day – all unique.  The tattooed man, the weary newlyweds returning from Italy – each story, with its quirks, a  coincidence with whom it is shared.

Strangers who boarded, waited, deplaned, and re-boarded now have an incremental understanding of a few of the stories that passed their way.  More willing to hoist luggage, step aside, spare a smile.  A common phenomena of human sociability.

Cheers went up at the gate as re-boarding was announced – camaraderie built only through the pressure of process and delay.  Something to that.