Every time I’m at the airport, I think about how many lives I’m witnessing. The airport gathers life moments that span the range of human emotion. Many are either embarking or returning from an out-of-the-norm adventure to their “normal” lives. Others experience this bed of irregularity as their norm, finding some home in the ever-shifting change of lives and movement of souls. I look for some hint of unexpected emotion in the person checking my bags. I look longingly at the aircraft crew uniformed in bright orange waving at us as our plane rolls towards the runway. I wonder if they can see my tiny head peering out the window, searching for a glimpse of their hearts.
I’ve always been interested in everyday parts of lives more so than special moments. I love stories that show what people pay attention to as they go through their day-to-day rather than the milestones that show off who they want to be, or who they want other people to think they are. A person’s daily breakfast ritual or how they walk to the park interest me far more than details of their graduation ceremony or first day working.
I’m a witness to my own body too and all its different manifestations, comparing how I change in response to the people and the environment around me: who so-and-so loves now, what so-and-so is obsessed over now, how so-and-so dresses, talks, carries themselves, the fallen Monterrey, that Mediterranean place with one-of-a-kind shawarma that unexpectedly closed down.
I’m witnessing that I’m scared right now.