So I had a totally different post planned for today – a little cheat of using a previous piece I’d written about Moments on a plane that I penned a few months ago. Instead, here I find myself an hour and a bit later after my flight was meant to depart and be somewhere up in the air, to now being ground with an indefinite delay flight status update at present!

It made me reflect on one of my favourite movies, “Love Actually” where in the opening scene, Hugh Grant’s character talks about how when he’s a bit gloomy about the state of the world, he thinks about Heathrow Airport’s arrival gate and what that represents to him and the LOVE that exists all around! And most often depicted in the humble little old airport…

Covid has indeed changed that a fair bit (my hometown for instance still don’t allow people to enter the arrivals terminal!), but life has resumed to semi-normal activity in most parts of the world. The airport as a microcosm of society still exists though with the ability to connect and bring people together. As a young child, it was an outing to go to the airport and see someone off, especially if they were travelling “overseas”, which just 20 years ago, was a pretty massive thing rather than the everyday occurrence of today’s wanderlust society. The airport was always thus a place of adventure to either see off or welcome a loved one from some far off (or near enough) place.

For me, that sense of adventure now runs much deeper with the idea of travel that an airport represents of connecting you not just to other people but other worlds too… There is an awesome connection one is able to experience at an airport – often with strangers you may never encounter again! Right now I’m experiencing random strangers talking to each other trying to keep updated, shared commiseration for realising that one of the passengers on the flight is getting married tomorrow and that an indefinite delay could mean disaster… I have had some of the best conversations with amazing people at airports. Often many I have never seen again! But each of them representing a part of our humanness and the basic unity that we share no matter who, what or where you’re from..

So today, I want you to look around. At every day simple things, environments or little microcosms of society and see where you too can find that sense of connection and love and community with those around you. With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, it’s a time of family, and to honour someone who has represented that to you in your life. And I hope that no matter how gloomy your day or world may look right now, like Hugh Grant says in “Love Actually”, love actually is everywhere!

Have a great one guys. Be kind and gentle to yourselves and see you next week 🙃

Much love always, Poonam

6 May 2022

p.s. If you haven’t watched “Love Actually” please do yourself a favour and pen it in to do sometime soon 😉