Airports have been a strange but soothing constant in my life. From a young age, dragged by my mother’s insatiable thirst for seeing new places I remember airports. I remember smells, I remember feelings, I bathrooms, I remember meals, I remember lounges, I remember much happiness, I remember much sorrow. I find a strange comfort in the rhythm of airports; they feel like they’re full of possibilities and meaning, and they remind me that everything is temporary.
In 2021 I was meant to go home to spend the first Christmas in my natal city for the first time in 10 years. My life felt like a storm, the ship I had been sailing on had sunk and I struggled every day to come for air. How I actually managed to get on the right plane(s), will always remain a mystery as I don’t remember much of those days.
I do however remember the tree. A tree with white leaves, almost insignificant in size, in the middle of duty-free aisles and barely perceptible at the entrance of another food court. The tree was a special tree; the tree had meaning and I had found it when I wasn’t looking. The leaves of the tree weren’t leaves at all, they were pieces of paper with people’s hopes scrambled on them. This was no ordinary tree stuck inside an airport building, this was a Wishing Tree. Meaning and hope had once again found me in the airport run.
I have been through this airport a couple of times since the first time I stumbled upon it. Every time naively looking for my my wish scrambled on Mariana’s baklava receipt. Thousands like me, must have written their wishes and pinned them on the tree’s branches, just as likely as airport security routinely removes old wishes to make room for newer ones. I could remember I felt my wish had all the right words, but what exactly I hoped for had vanished in the storm.
I recently went through this airport again. The tree caught the corner of my eye as I was strutting from one flight to the next. I didn’t have much time but like a moth to a flame, I went up to greet this old friend. Standing in front of it this time around, I remembered the words:
“Que pase lo que tenga que pasar, pero que pase rápido”
(let it be as it’s meant to be but let it be quick)
I smiled. These words and this wish had a powerful meaning back them. I had chosen for the first time to let go of control and surrender; I accepted that what was happening was necessary and even when it was incredibly painful maybe there was a reason for it that one day maybe I could see. While I accepted that things needed to break for the greater good, and that things weren’t ever going back to being what I dreamed they would be, my only hope was for the storm to settle quicker. I’ve never been patient, especially when the only way through the other side is to go through. Patience has never been my virtue – screw the Romans and their ideals.
I smiled when I finally remembered this time around. Almost three years later I found myself standing in front of the same tree, still chanting the same mantra. The words of my I wish are exactly the same, the circumstances however couldn’t be more different. The first wish came from a broken place, and the second one came from a place of love. Three and half years apart. A before and after. Two completely different people with the same handwriting. One running away from the present, one running towards the future.
Sometimes hope can be found in the most unlikely of places, and that glimmer is the only thing that prevents you from giving yourself to be swallowed by the abyss. The world is full of love and hope even if sometimes we only see a glimmer of it. Sometimes if you’re lucky and put in the work you will just go back to a broken place and marvel at the fact that you achieved something you thought you could never do: be grateful for a painful journey and the road where it now leads you. All you need to do is hold on to the Wishing Tree.
