What I Learned When My Flight Was Delayed

Last week, I spent ten hours at an airport for a flight that never took off.

This, after saying goodbye to my daughter, who is starting college 2,212 miles from home.

We flew from California to Florida together, spent two days together that were far too short, and I waited for the flight back home …

And waited.

And waited … as the flight kept getting pushed back half an hour at a time due to an engine problem, a part needed for the engine, the part on its way, the part not arriving.

Until, ten hours after I arrived at the airport (eyes still wet from having bid farewell to my oldest child and only daughter), the flight was canceled.

But something happened during the waiting.

Something happened to me as I sat and reflected and, as I often do in such times, as I began to write about the experience …

Airports are non-places.

In-between places.

You’re not really here but not really there yet. You’ve said goodbye and haven’t yet said hello.

At an airport, you’re not quite in the air but not exactly on the ground.

Usually, in airports, we’re in too much of a hurry to contemplate the liminality of such…