Airports Are Also Places
The fog of transit is finally lifting. I left San Francisco just before midnight on February 11 and arrived at our hotel around 3 PM the next day. An old friend of Henree treated us to a magnificent Chinese meal, and then I surrendered to much-needed sleep.
It’s remarkable how one solid night restores the system. Soon Henree will take me around Manila. For her, this is a homecoming — she hasn’t been back to the Philippines in ten years.
Moving through the gauntlet of travel, I felt my age more than before — the ongoing adjustments from hip replacement, the quieter negotiations with the body. I now accept priority boarding. On this flight, that meant assembling with the wheelchair passengers. By boarding time we were a battalion of nearly twenty chairs. What was meant to expedite the process slowed it down. Eventually other passengers were boarded ahead of us.
The policy was well-intended, yet it seemed to backfire. It happened again on our connecting flight. I was struck by how many were placed in wheelchairs — even those who could walk were urged to sit. I declined. I can walk. Just not quickly.
In contrast, the baggage claim was pure choreography. A team of handlers lined the carousel, each with a clear role. When someone spotted a bag, a handler moved swiftly, lifted it onto a cart, and reset. At one point a man was tasked with retrieving three nearly fifty-pound bags at once. In a small ballet of strength and timing, he secured the third just before it slipped beyond reach — all with ease and quiet grace.
An airport may not be a destination, yet it is still a place — one that asks for attention and respect. It shapes experience through rules, queues, and the subtle pressure to consume what travel is said to require. Despite its carefully engineered systems for moving bodies efficiently, unpredictability seeps through. The wheelchairs and the ballet at baggage claim were only two moments that caught my eye this time — small revelations inside the machinery of transit.
