Ireland

It was over half way through the flight to Newark that I realized: the next time I set foot in a Someone’s Land, it will be Ireland. Airports are not the place they are in. They are no place. They are Airportland, all pretty much the same, location to location.

Newark was like Minneapolis is like Houston is like Atlanta (except that Atlanta is more like a spaceport, when you are on the runway at night). On the airplane now, it’s morning, and Ireland is beneath me. Behind me, under the wing, it’s just what I wanted: green uneven fields, hedgerows, villages, lakes and rivers, windmills.
We’re going there.
We’re going to be down in that.


The plane has landed in Ireland, but we are still in America. The plane, like the airport, is a no one’s land. We are still in America until we disembark: the people are the same, The Beach Boys are playing through the speakers. But there are cows by the airport, and it’s very, very green out there.

I know.
Observant am I.