Flights in June

Empty airports, waiting for the travel worn and the showered to adorn it's halls and escalators.

Months ago these words were written in my journal at the top of the page, in black ink.

I sat on the vacuumed floor of the Denver International Airport in terminal C full of a different kind of fatigue, at three in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I was exhausted with logistics and lack of, well going to bed.

I had had trouble finding a place to stay for that night and a place to park my car while I was gone in California and even harder, someone who would take me to the airport at six in the morning, but I had found a compromise and about seven miracles all rolled into one.

My car was parked around the corner from a friends house on a street somewhere in the suburbs of Denver that I have to admit I had no idea what the name of the street was. But by miracles and friends who are amazing, I was at the airport, without sleep but with my single carry on and a few hours to wait till the sun graced the land again and a long while before my plane was even due to pull up to the gate.

I let my eyes loll closed for a moment, the sounds of the other sleepy traveler's shoes padding and tap-tap-ing on the moving sidewalk, a kind of musical lullaby to my sleep deprived ears.

     A bird, a little sparrow hopped off an empty seat and flew to the floor a few yards from me, pecking at a crumb the vacuum must have missed, it servayed me thoughtfully while swallowing the crumb silently. I don't know where it came from, or how it got in, but after a few more pecks at the floor it took wing and flew to the other side of the seats, presumably in search of more three am snacks.

     I slept for thirty minutes and when I woke up the floor was awash in gray light from the window to my right. I opened bleary eyes to see the pattern of the new sun of Wednesday hitting the ceiling and I sat up in preparation for some kind of breakfast in time to get on my plane.

I was on the ground in Salt Lake City for less than 10 minutes, enough to pee and ask the smiling flight attendant if I could hop on the earlier flight to Sacramento which was boarding, she told me about the 50 dollar upgrade fee, but at my not so keen look, she checked to see if my current flight was over booked, which by a wondrous miracle it was. My new flight got me to the Sacramento airport two and half hours earlier.

I called Christian from the my window seat on the exit row, just before they closed the doors. I can still hear Christian's sleepy voice as he picked up the phone straight out of a dream.

 "Hello?"

 "Hey, get up, I caught an earlier flight and I'll be there in two hours." I couldn't contain my excitement, even through the haze of sleep deprivation I knew we both were under. There was a silence as things began to click into place in his head and then:

"Oh, really? Oh wow, okay. ...Oohh head rush, I stood up too fast. Okay, what's your new flight number?"

A few more words and a quick passing over of love and it was time to turn off my phone.

We landed and my heart began it's steady uptempo beat that means I will soon see that boy.

The sun was bright and the sky bright blue and nothing was quite as sweet as a welcome hug from those eyes, and those arms.

And thus began my three weeks in Northern California in June