Terminal B

The literal definition of utopia is "no place." A place that doesn't exist. Nowhere.

That's where I am.

It's not where I set out to go when I got in the cab. I told the driver to take me to the airport. But now that I'm here, an hour before my flight, I realize there's nowhere ("no place") I'd rather be: it's well-lit, relatively quiet, and it's a place that's simultaneously new (I've never been to this terminal) and also completely familiar: I can find my way around like an old hand, and I know all of the place's cultures and etiquettes: I put my keys in the tray and take off my shoes without even being asked.

The hour before the flight, having put aside all of the anxieties of "Will I miss my plane?", is pure luxury: free time that doesn't exist on any calendar, spent in a location that is between places—nowhere. Everything is artificial, in relation to my "real" life—and since our "real" lives are mostly constructed, a break from that construction, an hour at the airport, might be the more real of the two.

* * *

Yesterday, walking to work, I saw a billboard of the Marlboro Man. I haven't seen these around much lately: Big Tobacco's changing tactics must have the iconic cowboy on the lam, hiding out in caves or whatever. So this billboard image of the rugged, unshaven, weather-worn cowboy struck me in a way I don't think it ever had: I'd become un-numbed to it, and it had become unfamiliar and regained some of its original power.

In that moment, I dreamt about a life in the outdoors of the High Plains, sun and rain on my face, unfettered by walls or cities or clocks or any of the constructs with which I've chosen to self-identify—without my job or apartment, without my family or friends or hobbies or skills. I too could be horseback, wearing a chamois and a wide brim hat, drawing on a cigarette, with wild horses and snow-capped mountains behind me.

At that moment, I saw (as I sometimes see, as we probably all sometimes see) the entire set of things which I choose to define myself as if they were arrayed on a lattice, and through the framework of this lattice, I saw the Marlboro Man. The lattice—its pieces collectively adding up to what I call My Life—was designed (consciously? unconsciously?) to provide structure, strength, and stability. A cage whose bars could keep chaotic reality at bay, in favor or something calmer, more stable, and less real. Nonetheless, a cage.

"That's silly, I don't even smoke." And continued my walk to work. Like now I continue up the causeway to my plane.