Airport

1.     Airport

The ways of change wind past landscapes that are physically altered by bulldozers or tangled vines.  But you change on the path too. You become more or even less wise; your attitudes and values sway in response to your experience.

   From a crowded airport terminal in New York,  with a lovely view of the Manhattan Skyline, I started thinking about change.  New buildings are there since the last time I took a long unhurried look, and naturally old ones are gone.  Many New Yorkers resent the loss of an old landmark: Ebbet’s field, Penn Station, or the Twin Towers.  At the same time, some of the same people celebrate the new ones. 

   But as I wondered, that was not the change I was thinking of.  I was thinking of how this skyline will change for me on the way back from Africa. 

   The thing is, you just can’t say.  Last year, I drove a group of students to JFK on their way to Cambodia, and I thought, I as sat in traffic overlooking Flushing Meadows, and the big metal globe with Manhattan behind it, “when they see this, they will know they are home.  They will be grateful to be back in civilization”.  Now as I look over that skyline, all lit up and busy, even late into the night, and I consider my memory of flying over Africa with hardly a flicker of light between Cairo and Kampala, and think of the dirt roads, wood fires,  wandering cows and goats, smiling children in school uniforms, I wonder if Manhattan won’t seem a little pointless.