Go in Peace

I hate the Denver International Airport.

I travel through DIA on average twice a year, once at Christmas and once at some random point throughout the year. The thankfully brief few hours I have to spend in this airport are usually, barring a bad customs experience, the low point of every trip. I hate the way the United terminal is built. It's a long, seemingly unending straight shot of gates with moving sidewalks that are often jammed with people that have no interest in moving any faster than the computerized tile beneath them will allow them to. These moving sidewalks are also built in large chunks with glass railings so if your gate is in the middle, you're going to end up going right past it and having to circle around. Also, the puddle jumpers that are used to ferry passengers from the middle of nowhere in North Dakota to Denver are parked at the far end of this hellscape so you're looking at probably a mile or two to your next destination. Rough guess on the distance.

I didn't hate it today.

I was fully prepared to, but I was hit by an odd sensation as I was navigating one of the moving walkways.

I'm in motion.

I use the present tense because I technically am. I'm in the Calgary Airport awaiting my final plane of the day, this process won't end for another three hours. But I'm savoring it. I'm not waiting on immigration paperwork, I'm not wasting away at work, I'm almost fully detached, my own single entity moving ever forward.

For the first time in a long time, I feel active.

I'm a leaf on the wind.