Zoned Out on Time, Or You Can Go Home Again (and Possibly Downton Part Three)

Time is strange at airports.

It doesn’t merely become compressed- it disappears almost entirely, at least for brief spells. The process can take some time though, and at times can be excruciatingly slow. Along the way there may be moments of timelessness and also some timely surprises.

When finally buckled in, waiting optimistically for the long line of take offs to actually move forward on the runway an inch or two- amid the weary, half hearted apologies from the captain- each second becomes insufferable, a fidgeting at the edge of your seat kind of time lapse. Later on, as the engines noisily begin the ascent to a timeless place, the hours become suspended. You board in one time zone, “deplane” in another, and the airport setting into which you land is extremely similar to the one from where you just left, minus or plus a few palm trees as now seen through yet another window wall. Where did the time go?

Upon first checking in there were the usual indignities that take so much time (waiting on line, watching irritated TSA agents shouting boisterously at you to move along and go this way- no that way!- seeing your bags slammed all over the place during the pat down and full body x-ray, then running through the checkpoint shoeless to catch up with your luggage). But finally I was allowed to drag my wheelie the mile or so to what seemed like the furthest gate, and in no time at all I was sitting, barely awake while still dark out. 

My seat in the above ground lounge overlooking the tarmac was practically nose to nose with a huge aircraft as seen through the floor-to-ceiling glass window wall, a small cadre of cleaners with armfuls of newly plastic-encased pillows and a variety of mops and shmatahs scurrying around its base. In and out of the cabin they marched, giving hope, helping to mark time. A pinkish bluish sunrise at the horizon threatened to start blazing chrome yellow at any second and time out my corneas, and so I looked away and tried to change seats, but not in time alas to land a spot safely away from the glare, as with the passage of time most of the seats had already been filled. And so I avoided looking at the sun as best I could and continued to count the minutes. Eventually, we were good to go, carry-on stashed high above, and in a word, it was time!

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I know why people tempt time, tease the minutes and hours of their lives and fly; I just don’t know why I am sitting here at the moment watching a silent movie about some art experts on a dangerous mission during WWII, one of whom happens to be Lord Grantham!!! How could this have happened? This surely has got to be the anachronism of all anachronisms! Did "Robert" unknowingly get trapped in some sort of weird time machine situation? The other incognito experts, his cohorts, also are dressed as soldiers because they are trying to recover some stolen art loot from the Nazis. As always, this is a soundless experience for me, the dialog muted by my refusal to don headphones as I prefer to occasionally peer at the action from the side, glancing at my neighbor’s screen now and again while writing. It makes the time fly.

But back to the question of the hour: what on earth is Lord Grantham doing in war torn Europe during the 1940’s, and on such a risky mission no less??? Edith is settled, finally, the grandkids all are grown, and for cryin’ out loud, by this time- even if still alive- he’d have morphed into a rather ancient- though still stately- old, old codger! Worse yet, doesn’t he even know he will be shot momentarily by some dastardly, fascistic art thief??? These guys don’t mess around! They’re in a rush. . . . It may be time to high tale it back to Highclere!

This particular time passing activity of watching the art-expert-fatality-movie from time to time surreptitiously and soundlessly was preceded by another similar, small screen experience earlier in the flight, that one about the legendary editor Max Perkins. Happily I already had spent considerable time delving into the actual words of Thomas Wolfe and musing on the notion of time and the river, among other things. You know, reading. A time tested occupation that beats both flying and watching infinitely, endlessly bad movies without the sound that seem to go on forever.

So now that I am earthbound again I still am in the process of trying to forgive Hugh Bonneville for that shocking and most unsightly travesty of pointless Hollywood time travel. The healing of course will entail spending much time reading books, not dwelling on the past, thinking hopefully of the future and its promise of more Downton reruns yet to come, and renewing my vow never to waste time again, ever, by getting ahead of myself and ultimately winding up losing time flying back during the onset of Daylight Savings. O, lost. . . .

I still hardly know what time it is. . . .