I’m convinced that airplanes, airports, and everything to do with them exist out of time. They are liminal spaces that hold everything transitory, including our memories and feelings. Nothing that happens within exists outside. So much so that most people take on a “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" mindset when going to the airport and flying.

I would say I’ve had plenty of airport and airplane experiences but I have no stories; none of them are whole anyway. I remember being a small child running from my dad’s arms to my mom’s when we picked her up at LFT (Lafayette, Louisiana). I remember being 21 pushing my suitcase through MSY (New Orleans) because at some point in transit the handle broke. But my most complete airport memory, no one else remembers.

I remember sitting on the floor of some ATL terminal at age nine with my mom and sister. We were going to Disney World with my dance studio for a performance in Disney Springs over Thanksgiving Break. I had to miss the prior week of school due to having the flu. Before we left, my mom picked up the work I missed for me to complete while we were away. The only assignment I remember was a long division worksheet because that was the lesson I missed when I was home sick. My mother tried her best to teach me, but she yelled and I cried and we only got so far. It was made worse when the bottom section of the worksheet was 2 by 2 multiplication, and my teacher had forgotten to include a note that I didn’t need to do it because she hadn’t taught it yet. Somehow we got from point A to point B and my sister taught me long division and struggled through the multiplication with me. I asked my mom if she remembered it like this, but she just remembers being angry that I didn’t do my homework before I left. My sister doesn’t remember any of this, though. She was shocked when I told her long division is one of the few things I remember how to do at 22. She’s 35 now and has fewer airport memories than I do. While my mom has more memories than the both of us combined, she’s forgotten the reasons and details of what happened in this particular incident. 

I wonder now if some airport god holds on to our memories in a different timeline. If maybe our memories get stored in back rooms and abandoned terminals or in plane engines that sputter out. Maybe it’s somehow related to “airport theory” (the theory that you can arrive at the airport up to 15 minutes before your flight and still be on time), or to the weird times that flights leave at. Like I said, I’m convinced that airplanes, airports, and everything to do with them exist out of time. I mean the Doctor did teach me that time is just a “big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff” and that has to count for something.