“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere.”
This is the opening line of the movie Love Actually. Hugh Grant’s voice goes perfectly with images of people hugging, kissing and greeting loved ones at the airport–smiling and tearing up at the same time. Those gestures of affection are small, ordinary even, but somehow they have the magic of filling up the air with pink bubbles. For me, this opening line of Love Actually has been especially memorable, because it describes perfectly how I feel about airports.
An airport is a place for farewell, but it is also where you never really say goodbye. The first time I came to the US as a high school exchange student, I lived with a host family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was shy and suffering a bit from culture shock, but my host family treated me like a daughter. We developed such a wonderful relationship that Tulsa, OK has become my home away from home. So six years later- after starting graduate school in Boston- I went back to Tulsa for Thanksgiving. I suppose we have all been altered by time- yet everything still felt very familiar. At the end of the trip, I was hugging everyone goodbye at Tulsa airport, and my little host brother suddenly said: “Everybody leaves.” My host dad answered, without a pause: “So they can come back.”
It was true.
An airport is a place to find new destinations, but it is also the starting point to finding a new home. When my boyfriend got back from a conference in Sweden this April, I went to Boston Logan Airport to pick him up. As I waited for his plane to land, it suddenly dawned on me that although this was my sixth trip to Logan in the past few months, it was the first time that I was there not to go to new places, but simply to wait for a loved one to arrive. This thought–the very thought of coming to bring a loved one home–gave me a sudden warmth, an unexpected sense of belonging.
Life is a journey–so the cliché says. I suppose being able to fly around the world is incredibly freeing–but being able to return to where you started, having someone to look forward to when landing at the airport–that keeps us grounded.
电影Love Actually如此开场。Hugh Grant的声音，配合着荧幕上，在机场里又哭又笑，互相拥抱、亲吻、致意的人们，异常温馨。其实，这机场里的一幕幕都不过最平凡琐细的小事情——然而它们却美好的，让空气里仿佛也充满了粉红色的泡沫。Love Actually这个开头，让我如此记忆深刻，恰因为它完美地描述了我对机场的感情。
我们在机场说再见，却并不是告别。
我第一次来美国，是高二时候做交换学生，住在俄克拉荷马州Tulsa市的一个接待家庭里。十六岁：害羞而又有点受着“文化冲击”——所幸我的接待家庭，待我如女儿。于是Tulsa也就成为了这天涯彼岸的，又一处家乡。六年后， 我开始了波士顿的PhD生活，第一个感恩节假期便是回“家”——Tulsa,俄克拉荷马的家。时光荏苒，倏忽六年，这六年之内，我们都被时间改变，却并不曾真正生疏，而我的“家人”音笑宛然，就仿佛从未分别。假期结束，返回波士顿，在机场告别时，＂弟弟＂忽然问：“为什么每个人都要离开呢？”，“爸爸”毫无停顿地答到：”为了能够重新归来“。
我想，我不能说的更好了。
我们在机场离开，又从机场，再找到家园。
四月间，男友去瑞典开会后返回波士顿。去波士顿洛根机场接他的路上，我突然想，将天涯住成了故乡的标志，或许便是：去机场不再是为了离开，而仅仅是为了，接人回家——这是我半年来第六次来洛根，却是第一次，仅仅是为了等一个人而来，于是竟因此，满心弥漫起某种温软的幸福与归属感。
就好像那句被说的烂俗的话：人生天地间，宛若一场逆旅。只是我想，奔跑飞翔，走遍世界固然是一种无上的自由——然而能够在行走游历时仍知道，在这世间的某处机场里，你等待的人也在等待你，这，才是我们与这世界间的牵挂。