Twas in the morning three days before Xmas 05, I misread the time for my air ticket such that I end up in the SF airport 3+ hours before my flight.
 
It had been arguably one of the coldest Winter in my life---my American dream fell apart 5 years after I arrived in this magic country, and I had to relocate to CA after I lived in Atlanta for three years. I worked for an IT company while lived in hotel for about one month, then I decided to go back to Atlanta right before Xmas. I knew nobody in the new place, and I had to clean up my mess left in the southern peach city. I sort of chose not to finish everything before I left, though I hate to admit that I don't wanna be alone for the Xmas. I guess sometimes we forsee the situations awaiting when we leave certain things unattended by purpose---that's natural since we all love "happy coincidence".
 
I laid back my suitcase against the wall beside the airport entrance, and wondered what to do next to kill this three hours. People of all age, color, and sex hurried through the entrance----none of them bothered to take a look at me. I turned to the street---it was windswept, and I started to wish I had stayed in the hotel to finish watching the nba game. I thought I have got used to being homeless and battling through any difficulty all by myself--- after all I have never got settled anywhere for more than 3 years ever since my teen age.  But at a moment like this, one did hate being ignored/abondoned by the world.
 
There are moments we are embarrassed by life esp. when one misread the situations. I guess I tried to think deeply about life, but my brain was numb---feeling like a stranded fish on the beach. You were chasing the joy of life a moment ago, and suddenly got isolated from the sea by unknown reason. It is no longer a problem to decide whether you should swim upstream or downstream now---you are isolated from either of them. You can swim in the small pool, but you certainly feel the shrink of breathing room every minute. You've been enjoying the sunshine all life, but all in a sudden you realize that you could get sun-burned after the pool is dried in the sun. You have never been so anxious to expect a heavy strom---to bring you back to the sea. There were millions of voices confronting each other from deep inside my heart. I decided to brush them away---grabbed my luggage and walked through the entrance. Yep, just dump yourself into the flow of life---it is a secondary matter to be upstream or to be downstream.

It was not until the moment did I feel the emptiness of my stomach, which kept contracting in an annoying flat rhythm. I tried to be as patient as possible till I past the security gate---I rushed to the nearest starbuck and bought a cake and a cup of coffee. I tried to add some sugar and milk into my coffee by one hand at the corner of the shop, while grabing the cake with the other hand. I guess I was impatient becasue I felt so hungry, and the worst thing happened---the cup flipped over and the whole cup of coffee poured onto the floor. Gash! I pulled out a big bundle of paper and began to do the follow-up. Damn it, when it rains it does pour!
 
A starbuck stuff walked by with her mouth wide-open, and she returned quickly and saved my life with a big mop. I was so embarassed and returned to the front desk to pay for another cup of coffee. The young man there gave me the cup and returned my money "Take it easy". Empthy---it does the magic for us when we feel crappy about what life puts in fron of us at such moments. It may not fix anything, but it at least creats moment of connection.
 
I carefully secured my cup and swore to the rest of my life that I would never play any coffee cup by one hand. Finally I arrived at the waiting area for my flight. It was very crowded. I went around a pole, sat down on the floor and laid down my cake and coffee. While I was unfolding the newspaper from my bag I heard a giggle, and a little boy jumped over my coffee before I saw him. "Robert!" a man in his early forties called out. The boy jumped into his daddy's arm and winked at me.  I guess the kids are always the most fascinating creature in this world. They can easily light up your mood in whatever situation. I winked back at the boy, and gave the dad an "OK" gesture.
 
The boy kept running around while his father talking with another man. Every time when the boy ran to the edge of his eyeshot, his father called him back. While his father were more and more into his talk, I could sense the jealousy of the son since he is running to the edge more and more often. Eventually his father was able to read the game and called back his son and whispered to him for several seconds. The boy jumped to his feet and shouted back: "I love you, too".  He was very proud and repeated this for several times. This drawed everybody's attention, and people  started clapping around while the boy dancing happily.
 
The father seemed to be a little embarrassed, and I knew exactly where this embarrassment came from. We've been told by tranditional Chinese moral to be conservative about love---it is always easier said than done. It could be partially true, but actaully we Chinese end up with another bewildered extreme---we seem to develop the allergy to the word "love". We certainly hold the belief for "love" in the bottom of heart, but we are reluctant to express it ----either because we believe we love much more than we can say or we believe it is cheap to say so. This is causing more and more communication problem. Esp. when this world is changing in an ever-fast pace, I fully encourage you to straight it out when you love somebody, before it is too late.