The Upside of Delayed Connections

There is a difference between sad food and solitude food. That's the main idea of an article I read sitting in a Brazilian airport cafe waiting for my delayed flight. In front of me is a musician playing his saxophone alongside a backing track from his ipad and a tiny amp. He is alone too, apart from the occasional three-year-old who stops to dance along to his tunes. Most passengers instead seem on a mission to find duty free alcohol, stand in a queue that won't start boarding for another hour or buy in-flight snacks they probably don't need.

I chose this open spot because the energy was much better than the quantifiably sad VIP lounge, filled with tired business men (yes, it is still all men) far from their families the night before Thanksgiving. It is true, business travel does have its own type of desperation.

Still, I find airports the perfect venue to write, read and watch people in a way that satisfies my curiosity about their backstories without staring so long it becomes creepy. Sometimes I probably get the timing wrong. The upside of eating alone in an airport is the chance to notice the things others miss. It is an in between time that life rarely gives you. You have places to go, but getting there faster is out of your control. The plane will leave when it leaves. So I may as well sit here observing and writing. It's not a bad way to pass the time.