I routinely travel long distances for my work. This typically involves a ride on an airplane and the concomitant long lines waiting for services that seem inefficient and unnecessary. The delays, the small but important details of gates and boarding passes and acceptable identification; the subliminal anxiety behind ground travel in shuttle buses and taxis; the moment of panic when they can’t find your name on the reservation list at the hotel lobby: all of these things contribute to a generalized disorientation and fatigue.
Which is why airport lobbies are so disappointing. The weary traveler looks forward to them as refuges, as places of predictably expensive yet decent food, as niches for finding news, for napping, for catching up on the inevitably delayed tasks of business traveling. The airport lobby is the hoped-for oasis, the place to make phone calls, to check email, to catch up on all the forum messages posted by creative writing students.
