Right now, I'm sitting in my hotel room just across from the OR Tambo airport. I wasn't planning to spend the evening in a hotel room, but it turns out that sometimes flying standby has just as many drawbacks as perks. There's only one flight a day from Jo'burg to Atlanta. I'll try again tonight -- wish me luck.
There's something about the empty neutral space of a hotel room that I secretly like. They always feel like a transitional space to me. Liminal (I like that word). I like the way a faceless conglomerate tries to anticipate what an individual person would want. I like owning a flat screen TV and a whole fake-fancy studio apartment of my own for a night. I like the liminal ownership of the situation.
I could have made it on the first try had I left Saturday, but instead we had an amazing going away party that night. There was this moment, at the end of the evening, when one of our guests looked at another, and declared that they were going to stand together and advocate for themselves. That they would refuse to be ignored and would work together to make sure they were seen and heard. I have never witnessed history before, and I think Saturday night I did. Just there, in my living room. Over cupcakes I had spent the morning baking. I had goosebumps. That moment alone was worth 10,000 missed flights and 10,000 neutral hotel rooms. It was powerful.
Of course, I would also like getting on an airplane back to America tonight. My favorite part of travelling, every single time, is when the customs person in Atlanta flips through my passport, looks up, and says "welcome home." I like being welcomed home.
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