I’m sitting in the Denver airport waiting for a flight. On the very edge of this particular terminal, before an entire wall of windows. Looking out into a view of clouds and an expanse of plains. Cars inch along a road in the distance, tiny against the slice of land and the broad swath of sky. Airplanes taxi across runways to my left and right, as if in slow motion. It’s growing dark, the sun easing its way down in the west, the east getting sleepy.
My flight is not for another hour and only a few passengers have made their way to the gate. It is quiet, save the intermittent instructions over the intercom -the quietest experience I’ve had in an airport for years. I’m thankful for this calm descent of day. I’ve had time to sit and think and look out of large windows – one of my favorite past times.
I watched a bunny hop through a construction area and find a home for the night beneath a stack of green fencing. Dozens of workmen labored on the pavement to it’s left, hundreds of passengers, pilots and airport employees walked these terminal halls, and no one saw it but me. This was my experience alone. Insignificant to the world, but significant to myself. The way I love to watch a single cardinal pecking it’s way across my yard. Or a bee visiting each flower in a patch of liriope blooms. Quietly witnessing something so tiny happening at the same time that wars and Wall Street and LA traffic rage on. It’s centering and humbling and enormously pleasant.
I need this. When I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 23 I couldn’t find room to think. Just think. For years. I lost the ability to stop and have some thoughts that weren’t particularly industrious. I didn’t know that was a thing one could need. Thought I was silly to expect such an extravagancy in the bustling, busy world. But I’ve learned that I do, in fact, need quiet reflection for my sanity. And I would argue everyone does. At least it couldn’t hurt. Blame it on my pensive tendencies, or my writer’s heart. Or my humanity. But the bunny and the sky and the yellow plains outside these windows have been like medicine to me this evening. I thought my layover was too long. But it has turned out to be just right.