Beyond the Basics: What Airports Teach Me About People
I love to people-watch. Especially when I’m traveling.
The airport is one of my favorite places to do it. There’s something about the pace, the variety, the in-between-ness of it all. I watch people rush past, rolling their suitcases with purpose, faces focused or frazzled. I notice what they’re wearing—gathering ideas for myself. Is that outfit actually comfortable for a travel day? What time did they have to wake up to get out the door? What did it take for them to get here?
Do they, like me, need a house sitter, a pet sitter, someone on standby in case their preteen or teen needs to come home? Did this trip cost them a fortune? Or is their bank account cushy enough that this was just another swipe of the card?
And where are they going? A work trip? A family obligation? A full-on vacation?
If it’s a vacation, I start to wonder: What kind of vacation person are they? Is it a beach vibe—a drink-a-piña-colada-at-the-water’s-edge kind of trip? Totally valid. Is it a Disney sprint—eating on the go, racing from one ride to the next? Also valid. Each of us is so wildly different in our desires, habits, and rhythms. Our idea of what’s restorative. What’s fun. What’s worth it.
On the plane, I eavesdrop a little (with love). People mostly talk about work. It’s what I overhear the most—people catching up on their jobs, their roles, the moves they’ve made. They talk about family too, but mostly in the context of what everyone is doing. Where their kid is going to college. What job their sister just got. The milestones. The highlights.
It’s comforting, in a way. We seem to collectively enjoy the rhythm of life’s checklist. High school → college → job → relationship → house → babies. There’s a kind of relief when people report that everything is going “as it should.” It’s enough for most of us. We nod, we feel happy for them, we move on.
But every now and then, I meet someone who goes just a little deeper.
Someone who, even in the short, suspended intimacy of a plane ride, offers more than just the basics. A glimpse into how they’re really doing. Something they’re struggling with. Something they’re dreaming about. A moment of vulnerability. And for me, that’s such a gift.
I know not everyone wants to live in the deep end of human connection—and that’s okay. There’s a certain beauty in being content with the surface. But I’ve always been drawn to what’s underneath.
Maybe it’s because I come from a family that lives there. We’re emotional beings. My family doesn’t just want to know what I’m up to—they want to know how I feel about it. What it’s like on the inside. That’s always been normal for me, and I’m incredibly grateful for it.
It’s made me deeply curious about others—not just what they do, but how they live. How they love. What lights them up, what weighs them down. So when I sit in a terminal or on a plane, I’m not just watching people pass by—I’m wondering about their whole story. Their past, their present, their worries, their hopes.
We’re all just walking around—carrying lives that are invisible to the people sitting right next to us.
Airports remind me of that. They remind me that every person is a full, complicated, beautiful story in motion.
And maybe that’s the real gift of travel—not just where we go, but how it cracks us open. How it invites us to look around and notice. To wonder about each traveler as more than just a passenger on a plane, but a person navigating their own life’s itinerary.
We all have one, after all. A personal itinerary that’s rarely linear. Full of detours and delays, long layovers, unexpected gate changes. Some chapters feel like red-eye flights—disorienting, exhausting. Others feel like spacious windows by the sea, where we finally catch our breath.
My work as a somatic coach lives in that space, too. It's about helping people come home to themselves—to slow down enough to notice not just where they're going, but how the journey feels in their body. To tune into the terrain of their inner life: the tight places, the open ones, the places asking for attention.
Because whether we’re boarding a plane or moving through a season of change, we’re always in motion. And we get to choose, if we’re willing, to meet ourselves along the way—not just at the destination, but in the scenery of the in-between.
Want to go a little deeper?
I recently shared a video where I walk through what it’s like to work with me as a somatic coach. If you’re curious about how this work can support you through life’s transitions - big or small. It’s a gentle, grounded invitation to explore the space between where you are and where you’re going.
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