raining at ORD

The 12th floor windows of my hotel room are streaked with rain, blurring the view of O’Hare airport. The sky reminds me of a winter night in Minneapolis, cloudy and bright, reflecting the thousands of lights below that guide planes home. A plane glides to the ground, then moments later another glides into the air. Rain continues to fall, softly.

The airport is a place of constant motion, of constant change. Inside, people bustle from point to point, mostly alone, coasting half-aware through the alienating environment we’ve constructed between home and away. Outside the movement is slower as planes aggregate the disconnect each traveler feels into a mass of steel bringing some where they want to be and others away from that very same place.