White Rocking Chair

Christmas Eve. 8:08 A.M.

To my right is a grey-painted heating vent running the length of the room and five six by six glass windows revealing the asphalt world of Boston Logan International Airport on a sunless New England morning. The endless runways are filled with jets taking people away from here. There are mail trucks, fuel tankers, and orange-vested men directing the show with a cool, almost lazy indifference. I realize for the first time the laughable incongruity between these orange-vested men and the massive machines they’re directing. With their reflective vests, ear-guards, and orange wands, they remind me of bombastic ringmasters taming lions with only a whip and a three-legged stool—equal parts impressive and reckless. But unlike the ringmasters and lions, I have never perceived any magic between the airport ground crew and their mechanical partners. There has always been something repugnant about the whole scene, something dirty and depressing. You can imagine my own surprise, then, when, as I sit here staring out the window, I recognize for the first time the beauty in this commercial scene. Instead of disproportionate managers, the grounds crew members are shrunken choreographers directing some bizarre industrial dance between man and machine. And I’m grateful because they will lead me home.

I’m sitting with my back to the corner so I can see everyone else in the room, and I have to tell you: this is the most extraordinary airport experience I’ve ever had. When I walked to my gate to wait for boarding, the previous flight had not yet departed. This meant the seats for my gate were still occupied by people traveling to Chicago and, eventually, on to Tokyo. I kept walking in hopes of finding another seat somewhere near my gate. I took a right turn past C21 and found myself staring at a room full of empty blue chairs—not a single seat occupied. I scanned the room for power outlets but stumbled instead upon something completely unexpected. There, in the far east corner of Terminal C in Boston Logan International Airport, was a white, wooden rocking chair. That’s right, a white rocking chair.

I was immediately skeptical.

I crept slowly towards the chair, approaching it as if it were some cornered wild animal. Or maybe I thought it was some East coast, cold-induced mirage that would disappear as soon as I turned to sit down. Either way, it neither attacked nor disappeared, and I sat down quite comfortably and eased into a methodical rocking. Combined with the music blaring from my headphones, I almost forgot the general annoyances of airport travel.

Music’s power to transform the ugly into something beautiful (or often the reverse) is remarkable. An ordinary day can be made extraordinary with the appropriate soundtrack. Melodies can somehow wash over my visual experience of the world, combine with my emotions, and render moments, places, memories, and experience something they never were nor never will be. The present becomes something it’s not. It’s terrifyingly addicting. These are the songs that made my airport experience so awesome:

“Bring It On Home To Me” – Sam Cooke

“Nothing Can Change This Love” – Sam Cooke

“NYC” – Interpol

“Take Care” – Beach House

“Zebra” – Beach House