I’m standing in the C terminal at the Nashville Airport, looking at the skyline of the city, far in the distance, enveloped by clouds.
I should take a picture, I thought. But that was five minutes ago when the sunset burned an orange trail over the buildings like a holy arch.
By the time I walked to the window and snapped it, the clouds had dropped, the buildings were hidden, and the passenger shuttle to the exiled annex of Spirit Air was crossing the runway, sadly and slowly transporting the third class of air travelers (of which I am a regular member) far away from the first class statuses of American, Southwest, and United. One more delineation between the haves and have-nots. Well, maybe the haves and haves-less (?) because if you’re flying on anything to anywhere, you ain’t struggling that much.
This shuttle happened to cross the jet bridge just as I pressed the button on my phone to take what turned out to be a pretty shitty picture; the first third of the bus appearing to come forth as a chestburster would in “Alien.”
I was about five minutes too late. Or, maybe, five minutes too early because now the clouds have broken and the skyline is cutting a sharp silhouette of the city in front of me, which, on further review, isn’t Downtown Nashville at all. At least, I don’t think. There’s no Batman building in sight.
I spend a lot of time in airports, at gates waiting for planes to land or leave, hoping for only slight delays rather than the one I’m experiencing now—over an hour and a half and counting.
This is nothing new, though. I’ve spent a lot of time in airports being five minutes too late or five minutes too early for a multitude of things - a faster security line, a better seat on Southwest, a connecting flight.
Made it by a hair. Missed it by a mile. Everything in between.
When I first started flying regularly, it was out of Little Rock—the Bill Clinton Airport, if I remember correctly. A three-hour drive for a 45-minute flight—Little Rock to Dallas. Not enough time for a Coke and pretzels.
Then it was Memphis to Dallas (Love and DFW—I don’t discriminate) and back again every other weekend.
I would listen to The National a lot. The baritone of Matt Beriniger’s voice, a soothing sound against the staccatoed chaos of the Dessner arrangements, was on a loop.
I’m on a Bloodbuzz, God I am.
Or, I was. Or, I still am. Sometimes, I don’t know.
Eight years ago, I flew to Dallas for my daughter’s speech. She was running for Class Recorder. I still don’t know what a Class Recorder does in the fifth grade; I don’t think she did, either.
But she had a hell of a speech and a mini-polaroid camera for a prop that she used to snap a picture of the crowd looking back at her to emphatically sum up why she should get their votes, immediately turning and walking off stage to a round of applause.
Click. Boom.
She won. You can’t lose a fifth-grade election if you use a Polaroid camera as a mic drop moment.
The night before her speech, I landed in DFW close to midnight, the airport cavernous. No PA announcements. No frantic running to catch a flight. Quiet. Empty.
I’m already seeing the stars in the air. It’s a foregone conclusion.
The next day, after her speech, I gave her a hug, told her I was proud of her, and stopped by the house we would rent every other weekend when I was there to get the phone charger I had left a few days earlier. The owner of the house was leaving it on the front porch for me.
I grabbed it and, out of habit, called for Lucy and Ethel - the two sister felines who lived there. They both came running. I gave them a couple of pets and headed back to the airport to catch my flight back to Tennessee, trying not to be five minutes too late.
One life. Two states.
My daughter moved to Tennessee a few years ago to live with me. Ethel had made the move a few years before her, adding one more piece to the middle of the Texas/Tennessee Venn Diagram.
Overlapping. Seperate but together. Distinct but blending.
Last month, I watched my daughter walk across the stage of the school where I began my teaching career 22 years ago; the same school I left 17 years ago when her mom moved her to Texas. She grabbed her diploma, turned her tassel. I hugged her and told her I was proud of her, just like I had done eight years earlier after her speech.
Flat circles on a moving belt. Turning and repeating, but moving forward like an album on a turntable.
I’ll move her to Chattanooga for college in two months.
Tonight, I’m flying to Philadelphia. I’ve made this trek nearly every other weekend for four and a half years.
One life. Two states.
I’m listening to Matt Beriniger’s newest album, Get Sunk. “Frozen Organes” is on repeat. It sounds most like The National that I’m familiar with; The National that was my soundtrack almost a decade ago.
But it’s not The National; it’s Matt Beriniger. Familiar to the point of nearly being exact, but not.
Almost the same. Five minutes too early; five minutes too late. Blending but never quite fully homogenizing.
There’s frozen oranges in the trees in Indiana, in Indiana.
One day, I’ll be in one place. In Philly with Laura. Ethel’s already there waiting. I never thought a cat would be a constant.
Until then, my life will still be a lot like the shitty picture accompanying whatever this is - shifting between spaces, changing from one thing to another.
It’s Nashville until it’s not. It’s beautiful until it’s not, and then it is all over again.
And when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time. - Exit West
"Made it by a hair. Missed it by a mile. Everything in between." So good.