Why I'm Smitten with Ben Gurion Airport

For those of you who may not know, when I am not exposing my personal life for the world, painting dark pictures of little girls, getting blood tests and ultrasounds, reading novels, or watching Entourage, I happen to have a full time job managing a 9-month art program for 18 year old kids from abroad. Today is the day they arrived. Being one of the newest employees here, I was given the unpopular job of going to the airport to pick them up.

Now I won’t pretend that my delight at being given this responsibility (at 6 AM) would have been the same had I not been told by the nurses that I ovulated all by myself yesterday, so today I am as giddy as an infant who just discovered he has control of his own arms (in that a formerly dangerous unpredictable menace suddenly became a delightful new toy and also the stupid wide-eyed grin on my face) but I was absolutely cheek-to-cheek thrilled to go to the airport. My reaction would not have been any more cheerful had they told me they were sending me skinny dipping in cotton candy, or to be a taste tester for Ben n Jerry’s, or on a 5-star all expense paid trip to London to hang out one on one with Paul McCartney. Yes, I am in an excellent mood. And also, I really love Ben Gurion Airport.

The awesomeness of a trip to the airport begins with an early morning phone call, when a cranky Israeli shuttle driver tells you that you had better be downstairs in 5 minutes (or else). So I gingerly boarded the shuttle, 10 minutes early even. I was unlucky enough to be the first pick up, so I spent the next two hours riding in circles around Jerusalem picking up other passengers. But I didn’t care. I love everything today! I loved the smelly garbage cans, the skinny, wild eyed cats peeking out from every corner, the sleepy, grumbly travelers dressed for the long trip ahead; I even embraced that familiar urge to puke from motion sickness.

The excitement of the airport first hits you when you pull up to the security checkpoint. It is always, without exception, guarded by the tallest, most attractive Israelis you will ever see. I remember a few years ago some photographer made a calendar full of sexy fashion models dressed in Israeli army uniforms (it was enough to satisfy any Zionism-fetish). I suspect they then hired those same models to work at the airport. Yes indeedy, if you ever join the Israeli security service and are posted for airport duty you should take it as a huge compliment and assume that you are in the top 1% of Israeli society (in terms of appearance anyway). It is the only pro-Israel propaganda this silly little country has ever gotten right. Nothing like a six pack and bee-stung lips to say “What Are You Thinking Leaving Israel?” or “Welcome to Jewish Heaven, Where Flabby Bellies, Cellulite, Double Chins, Ashkenazi Rear Ends, Nerdy Glasses and Bald Spots Magically Disappear.”

Then you arrive to the actual terminal, which is misleadingly well-organized, new and modern considering the country it represents. Survivors of near-death experiences claim that their entire lives flash before their eyes in the last seconds. My entire Israel life flashes before me each time I enter the terminal. First I am 13 years old and indifferent following my family off the plane and onto the tarmac with my nose in a book, then I am 22 with the birthright group trying to grasp the fact that I am in that very same spot on the map whose right to exist I have spent four years defending. Then I am a counselor on birthright trips, re-experiencing that first-time-in-Israel moment through the participants. And before long I am the Media Darling making Aliyah, my closest friends and Awesome Hubby greeting me in the terminal. A year later Awesome Hubby and I are back here anxiously awaiting our parents, siblings, best friends and grandparents who are arriving for our wedding. My mind pauses on the moment when my grandmother and her sister are reunited after 15 years, not knowing then that it would be the last time they would see each other. Then of course there are the memories of each time I left Israel in the last three years: the excited anticipation of boarding a plane, seeing friends and family after many months. Really, a trip to the airport is always exhilarating. There is almost never a bad reason to go.

But the best part of a trip to the airport is leaving the airport: stepping out into the wet heat, breathing in Israeli air, feeling grounded on Israeli soil. And just like all those times that I was here visiting; I still feel nothing but gratitude that I am here.