Being home, travel, airport, etc.

It’s so good to be home! The last five days have been so happy, so real, so cozy, and have just thoroughly warmed my heart. I got to appreciate the joy of simply being together and doing little. Please allow me—as any mom would like to—brag about my boys: they give me so much fun, and conversations with them always so interesting, and they seem to be doing well, very cooperative with Paul without my constant presence. They are happy at school, play well with each other, eat and sleep well. You can’t ask for more! And it was so great to visit and catch up with friends--everyone made me feel so warm and at home. I also visited with two former professors to talk about work. What a nice relief to talk about ideas to people who fully understand and appreciate them! All in all, I just can’t wait to tough through the next two weeks of many exams and papers and be home again!

Now that I have become a frequent Jetblue flyer, I have gotten the routine down, arriving at the airport no later and no earlier than necessary, swiftly going through the security, and sometimes taking the leisure to look around and people watch.

Ever since I was very little, I’ve always been fascinated by the airport environment. People greeting family and friends with excitement and joy, or seeing them off with sadness; airline crews moving quickly through space with perfectly pressed uniform; lonesome vendors standing by their booths; security officers looking stern and often bored; and of course, the ground crew and the pilots all the “cool” guys making sure this extremely complicated operation is coordinated in a timely manner. It is a place where numerous facets of life co-exist and sometimes forced to interact.

On Thanksgiving Day, I arrived a little early so got to wait in the airport for Paul. So many happy faces welcoming family members’ reunion! I almost cried when I saw these excited grandparents jumping to hug their visiting grandchildren. This must be exactly how our moms feel when they see Noah and Ben after a long time away, but seeing the emotions on a stranger-grandmother’s face actually makes the joy even more apparent, and so beautifully universal! I also smiled when I saw a mom at the curbside welcoming her college-age son, apparently coming out from California. As she happily greets him with a big kiss and a hug, she said, “Flip-flops?! Do you think this is California?” I can see myself greeting my college-aged kids on a Thanksgiving, having been looking forward to a good solid hug and a good sniff of my sweet boys.

However, not all scenes at the airport are so uplifting. I was disturbed to again witness the racial and ethnic profiling that’s come to be called “random” searches. A Muslim woman with headscarf and her boy, about three-year-old, were told to go through a separate line, escorted by a TSA officer. Every piece of their belongings was carefully searched, swiped with bomb-detecting cloth, and the woman was thoroughly padded down by a female officer while the boy had to stand aside by himself. This is not the first time I noticed how Muslim passengers get profiled and more thoroughly searched than all others. A part of me just finds it so disturbing as I cannot help but relate it to prejudice and racism. Or maybe it’s not, as the whole discomforting airport security system simply represents a general mistrust, fear, and it is a justified procedure for national security purposes--this phrase has become all too disturbingly familiar. It’s just that when it’s a woman with a young child, clearly picked out because of her black scarf, the scene rubs me the wrong way.

Anyhow, back in Berkeley for two intense weeks. I will be a happy bird after all of these obligations are over and done with and I can be home again with my boys :)