Baggage Claim

Intransigent - adjective - impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason

I haven't been in many airports, and not on many occasions. Somehow, I seem to end up there late at night, by myself, waiting for someone's arrival, and standing near a baggage claim area.

Baggage claim is a weird thing: sometimes baggage can be seen, revolving around and around, like monkeys waiting for a back to cling to. Sometimes, you see people waiting, leaning forward, longing to retrieve what was once theirs, what they hope will be theirs again, or maybe what they hope will be theirs in the future. Sometimes you see the loved ones of those absent travelers straining for some piece of evidence that the missing one will return. Suddenly the baggage you didn't want to carry for your loved one when they were present becomes a treasure you grasp at and cling to. We feel that if the baggage is there, the loved one must be too.

Some day I'll paint a painting and call it "baggage claim." There will be a familiar conveyor, indifferently circulating those magic tokens of life: old report cards, Dear John letters, wrecked cars, bottles of booze, packs of cigarettes, smoking guns. Packed around will be the haggard travelers and their loved ones, pushing, reaching, grasping, clinging, to live the lives they've always known. If you look close, you'll see crying children, bruised women, despondent lovers, and many, many lonely and heartbroken faces.

All of them, victims of intransigence.

My advice to you is this: travel light.