Concourse A. Detroit

After a night constructed of tosses and turns, I am slowly opening my eyes to the day with the help of a tall Americano. Even though I am inside (Concourse A at the Detroit airport, where the streamlined, glossy cherry-red tram that reminds me of nailpolish passes overhead to my right in 10-minute cycles), I have just shared a tiny bit of scone with the bird that was staring at me as it perched over on the row of seats a few feet away. There are a surprising number of birds in here. I noticed it yesterday as I was walking to the airport shuttle. This morning, I wonder once again if some of them spend their entire lives inside this airport, never experiencing the world outside. I am thinking about the alter-ego of this place: a universe of birds, avian perches, homes, territories, mating rituals. As humans rush back and forth completely unaware, instead simply arriving, departing, scurrying for their planes and doing all their human things.

My plane to Maine, which I anticipate actually being on today, leaves from Concourse C, but I am hanging out here for awhile because it's a vast, open space with more light than the concourses below. There are international flights up here: people headed to Korea, Japan, Belize, China. Just hearing the announcements in Japanese are making me homesick for Japan, even though I never LIVED there, but immediately felt at home on my first trip. Since yesterday, I have had fantasies of being a travel writer (ok: I'm lying. I've had this thought many times over the years, so yesterday wasn't the first time). Talk about a fantasy career! I love travel. I love the being caught off guard, having to go with the flow of it: the random conversations you have with people you will never see again, the opportunity to make a few memories in a place that will join the pile of all those anonymous, often look-alike restaurants, bars, and hotels you've ever been. Even while certain details of each one will never let you go.

There are four birds circling overhead now. At least 100 feet above, flying in and out of the open spaces between the corrugated, arced panels that stretch over the terminal in contemporary buttressed fashion. The birds are going about their day, and I am finally shedding the exhaustion of strange sleep. And disruptive dreams of being paged at the airport and being accosted by giant centipedes. The centipede dreams were the echo of the real centipede that decided to say hello when I was in the dirty hotel bathroom at 2:00 a.m. The hotel seemed like it had the potential for bugs. And, indeed, it lived up to this promise quite well.

Now. Time to gather my things again and head to Concourse C. And a rainy day in Maine!

Freewriting Detroit

I am in Detroit, supposed to be in Maine right now, already having landed, already having made the ride in my rental car from Portland to Freeport, already settling into my room. But I am not: the flight from Detroit to Portland was oversold. I was bumped right off, last on the list, never stood a chance. Never even held the promise of an assigned seat. Instead of a rainy drive and stormy coast, I am sitting in the place oh-so-uniquely christened Wings Bar and Grill in a Day's Inn off the highway, a half-eaten feebly limp salad to the left, a much better Cubre Libre to the right (at least there's not much you can do to damage good old Captain Morgan). I am eavesdropping. I can't help it. The dyed-blonde bartender with the dark, almost orange tan and triple Ds pushed right on up to the ceiling with a low-cut hot pink camisole, says wisely to the man at the bar: well if she was able to just leave like that, then she was never a good mother anyway. He is seeking consolation--an ear, a nestle, a little bit of snuggle if he's lucky--that gray-haired man with white socks pulled up mid-calf, running shoes, and t-shirt with a spray-painty beach scene reading Margarita on the back. I can't tell if they have just met or if they have known each other for years. It's the flavor of bar conversation: it wouldn't matter either way. In here is out of time, the conversations are fast and loose, all happening within seconds in this dingy, low-ceilinged room lined with TV screens out on the highway, where you look out the window and see concrete buildings, the view of an industrial park and you remember that you aren't near the beach, but just that close to the airport after all. A few stragglers walk in and out of the bar, stepping cautiously over the brown-swirled carpet, like the middle-aged woman who walks through the doors, blinking a little like she's not quite sure why she's here, but where else will she go, what else is there to eat tonight, because she looks like she was bumped off too and finds herself in that strange, fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants, because you have no choice, night of suspension. So instead of Maine, I'll toast Detroit. Straight to Detroit from the Captain as the Margarita man walks out. After the bartender turns away.