From an Airport, into the Blur

مَطار

root: ط-ي-ر / noun of place / plural: مَطارات / definition: airport

I’m writing this from a quiet(er) corner of Gatwick’s North Terminal after arriving four hours early, burdened with overstuffed cabin bags and guilt from having to throw away an unopened pint of milk before I left home.

Even after a sit-down matcha latte and yaki soba breakfast, I still have around three hours until my flight. And there’s nothing else to do but type. So here we are.

I’ve recently been training myself to leave the house without glasses. Well—more accurately—wearing non-prescription sunglasses.

It’s partly to get over the anxiety of not seeing every detail and facial expression as I walk into the blurred beyond. But mostly, it’s because I like the style of these new sunglasses more than my prescription ones.

(Vanity is blind, it seems.)

And it’s reassuring that the shaded glasses subtly mask the panicked wideness of my eyes as they try (and fail) to absorb more visual detail from the surrounding goings-on.

In some way, summer feels like that blurred beyond—despite the fact I know we’re over halfway through and I need to get back to organising the study trips and placements I’ve only half-arranged for the autumn-winter period.

But with these sunglasses, it’s hard to focus.

In my search for greater meaning (which I’ve mentioned here and there), I allowed my mind to wander when I flicked to page 268 of the Hans Wehr.

What does it mean, I asked, that we find the roots related to:

befriending (خ-د-ن)
submission (خ-ذ-ء and خ-ذ-و)
abandonment (خ-ذ-ل)
and destruction (خ-ر-ب)

gathered on the same dictionary page?

The logical answer, of course, is that the dictionary is organised alphabetically by root. But that’s also the boring answer.

Instead, I let myself drift:

Does this dictionary page speak to the interconnectedness or, perhaps, sequential nature of these conceptual realities?

Does befriending, for example, require some sort of submission? A conforming and masking in order to establish social ties?

Is submission simply an act of destruction towards the self? Towards the ego?

And does befriending necessitate an eventual yet imminent abandonment? Is there any way to abandon without destroying?

You’re right. It’s just a dictionary page. And I, waiting for my flight, am simply passing time in the delusions of overcoming my short-sightedness by looking further and further into that blurred beyond.

But who knows—maybe something in the distance will eventually crystallise.

.في أمان الله