the journey to louisa's house

So there I was, standing outside the Minneapolis airport after midnight last night, using up my last reserves of energy for the purpose of remaining upright. Countless other stranded, tired passengers joined me. An airport worker stood smoking listlessly nearby. One by one, at least fifteen hotel shuttles pulled up who were not there for me. Each time one turned the corner, my hopes were lifted, only to be dashed once the logo on the side of the van came into view: Ramada Inn, La Quinta Inn, Best Western, Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites. Who knew Minneapolis boasted so many chain hotels? My peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a distant memory. I was wearing the wrong shoes. Desperation set in.

But then I heard this guy on a cell phone behind me. He was a handsome man in his fifties, traveling with a strikingly fit and put-together wife, and he had come unhinged. “We’re in Minneapolis. No, really. It’s fine. I like it here. We’re going to go to the goddamned Mall of America, that’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go buy myself a hundred gold watches there, I swear to God.”

I started giggling. I looked at his wife, who was smiling placidly. I found someone else who was also waiting for the mythical Hilton shuttle. She was a fresh-faced, earnest young woman who crunched numbers for the Department of Education and was traveling to a 50^th high school reunion in Sioux City to collect data on people who had taken part in a wide-ranging longitudinal study called Project Talent. They had been asked questions about their career ambitions as 10^th and 11^th graders, and now she was going to see how it had all turned out (in a quantitative survey sort of way), fifty years later. She couldn’t have been older than 24, in a messy blond ponytail and flip flops, slinging a bright green tote bag with the Project Talent logo on it. I somehow resisted the urge to hug her and wish her well on life’s way when we parted at the hotel.

Then I slept. And showered. A nice man brought me an enormous vegetable omelet and two cups of coffee in the hotel restaurant this morning. The world was looking a lot brighter. 

I was the only person on the hotel shuttle heading back to the Minneapolis airport, so the driver and I talked. He is a studying international business at the University of Minnesota. Born in New York, his parents emigrated from Nigeria, and he speaks three African languages (in addition to French and English). We talked about traveling, about how Africans laugh all the time (me: I think I would like that, maybe I belong in Africa? - him: it’s kind of annoying though. Will somebody please get serious?), about his experiences traveling in Zimbabwe, and having to stop the car for an elephant crossing the road.

Who else have I met in the course of my airport adventures? Squirmy, three year old Ethan of the beautiful blue eyes, reunited with his military Mommy after a month’s separation while she was in training. Boy scout Troop 90 of the Chippewa Valley Council (the braces, the gangly limbs, the hatwear…!) hoisting sleeping bags and backpacks over their shoulders, en route to a doubtlessly memorable camping trip. A middle-aged Dominican couple hoping to finally make it to Las Vegas before the holiday weekend was over.  A Middle Eastern man carrying the most outrageously trimmed lap dog you can imagine, attracting the attention of every child within a hundred foot radius. He held it over the wide trash can in line in security, joking that he couldn’t take her through so he’d have to dump her, much to the delight of one particular airport security worker who clearly loved dogs. And all of this, all of this was set to the music of so many Minnesotan accents floating on the air around me.

Sometimes I just love America. I love it. Who knew getting stranded on my way to visit my new niece Louisa would inspire this kind of overwhelming love for my fellow man? And woman? And country? Maybe it’s the solidarity that comes with these kinds of experiences. Maybe it’s because our new suburban lifestyle has deprived me of city streets and buses and the diverse strangers one is privileged to inhabit those spaces with. But honestly, where else in the world could I have met the above collection of people? Where else do they brush up against one another and share daily life?

Despite persistent and frightening xenophobia that courses through American culture and politics, this country continues to be the place that admits more immigrants legally than all the other developed countries of the world combined. What distinguishes us more as a nation than that? What better to be proud of, than a young man who speaks five languages, who wakes at 4 am to drive the hotel shuttle to pay for college, who is more New York than Nigeria – who is so decidedly, so extraordinarily American?

I’m about to board a plane for Cedar Rapids, Iowa now. Things just keep on looking up.

Happy Fourth of July, friends!