I’ve made my peace with Boeing

I nervously approach the flamboyant Geneva airport barista. His nametag reads Nuno. There‘s something eerie about picking up signals from strangers that indicate a shared nationality, or native language.

And it‘s not comparable to the stories you‘ll hear of mass migration, genocide and brave survival in the face of industrial adversity, but it‘s still a truly beauitful moment to me, when I connect with a stranger, with a glimpse of an eye that spells all the shared experience of being from the outside, from not-here. But after all, we weren‘t murdered, we were just poor. But it‘s the jokes, mostly, aimed at our many working poor, the ones that came all the way here to get a new lease at a decent life, that came and raised us, kids, then made us yearn for going back, or staying here, but confused nonetheless. I never know just where to stay, nothing is home except that brief glimpse I share with a stranger whose biography I can muster.

The kind swiss airline reminds me I‘m not allowed to drink alcohol from outside the plane, bought at the airport. Ready for take off. Inhuman speeds not meant to be enjoyed by man suddenly drag my eyelids shut, as my childhood flashes before my eyes. As we cross the road at maximum velocity, I could go either way. I‘ve made my peace with Boeing. Nuno was nice.