I am often overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of the world. Like how can there be enough lemons for the whole world each day? How can we build all the buildings, ships, airplanes and coordinate all the tiny parts needed for each? How can each of us own so many individual things that no one wants when we move or die? How can we eat breakfast in Halifax airport in the morning and then be near London Heathrow picking any three items for £6 for supper.
And where do all those Tesco turkey, bacon and cheese sandwiches get made anyway?
Having just finished “A Week at the Airport” I am imagining that they get made just like airplane meals “in a windowless refrigerated factory [a mile from Heathrow, where] eighty thousand breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, all intended for ingestion within the following fifteen hours somewhere in the troposphere…made by a group of women from Bangladesh and the Baltic…foods that would be segregated later according to airline and destination now mingled freely together, like passengers in the terminal.
That Halifax airport breakfast I remember from last November was served to us by a woman who had already gotten her kids ready and dropped off at school before driving more than a half hour to the airport to start her shift.
Book author Alain de Botton was commissioned to immerse himself in the inner and out workings of Heathrow Terminal 5 as Writer-in-Residence. The stories he shares range from the heartbreaking to the sublime. I was riveted.
My whole life, I have watched people in public spaces like airports and wondered about their lives. How long was their commute, I’d wonder, for the tired looking flight attendant who must have just finished their shift? How many kids did they have at home? Or did they live in a tiny flat somewhere in London where they could go crash peacefully? Were they exhausted by their work or did they love to fly the skies?
Was that passenger who cried during the flight leaving loved ones or flying to a sick parent or their funeral? How come my seat mate refused all food and water offered on a transatlantic flight from Paris to Toronto, while trying to convince me to take a call from his niece who was trying to find work in Canada. And should someone offer to help that mother whose toddler is crying? Yes. Always yes and it should be me if I am having this thought.
And what about the people who get taken to private rooms in Immigration in larger airports? Did you know that there is a room at Heathrow Terminal 5 that has toys one can keep, plus ample snacks, for kids whose parents are being questioned?
Large international airports are like cities whose ‘residents’ come from every corner of the globe. They are anxious, exciting, overwhelming places. Their scale and logistics boggle the mind. As does the number of lemons they must use in the run of a day.