It is so quiet at that time; between what was the evening and what will become another day. It is strange to be awake at this time, if you are lucky you have had a full night’s sleep, or you are trying to shake off the remains of sleep that you were able to catch before the alarm went off. Either way, there is something very unique about being awake at 1 am in the morning. It is still dark out, and even the weather hasn’t decided which forecast it is going to work from; yesterday evenings, or tomorrow mornings.. It is like a void, a time that just is, and you happen to be getting ready to start your day at this time.
The family is sound asleep, even the dogs don’t get up to see why one of their humans is up this early. Funny, if you had not had any sleep at all, it would be called late, but if you have had some sleep, I think you can call it early.
The uniform is a blessing at this time of day, nothing to think about really, just fall into the routine of the pieces that come together to make a complete uniform. That makes it so easy, you don’t have to think about anything, or make any decisions about what to wear, it is simply just the uniform, no more no less.
It is hard to eat at this time, would this be a late night snack, or an early breakfast? Whatever it is, I always found that I had to have my breakfast before I could start my day in earnest. Simple toast and juice, but no different than I would normally have for breakfast, only the tea is forsaken, unfortunately, a dioritic before a shift that involves standing or moving around on your feet for many hours can’t be bothered by the actions of a dioritic. So the tea is forgotten as part of the morning breakfast.
Driving at this time of day is something I really treasured. Often there are only a few vehicles on any of the roads I take; it feels like the highway is all mine, to drive as I see fit, whether it is in the fast lane or the slow lane, I can cruise between the lanes like a race car driver rallying for first place position. I loved banking the curves in the road by drifting across the lanes in whatever direction needed to make that bank. It sometimes really felt like I was on a racetrack, banking to increase my lead on the other vehicles behind me; only there are no other vehicles behind me. Just me, the roadway, and my tunes. Perfect. This kind of driving can actually spoil you a bit because when you do have to face traffic again, you have to play by the rules and put up with other drivers. That never happens at 3 am in the morning. Even if there has been a snowfall, it feels amazing to be the first person to make tracks through the blanket of smooth whiteness; like you have left your mark for others to follow. It truly is a blissful time.
I don’t think about how tired I am, or how I am facing an 8-hour shift, I just think about how lucky I am to be driving a safe vehicle, down a paved highway, that takes me effortlessly to my destination.
Sometimes some crazy stuff happens during this drive. Like the time a vehicle without their lights on, came up in the lane beside me, so fast, that it felt like someone had fired a giant bullet alongside my vehicle. They were gone in a flash and left me slightly breathless as I considered what might have happened if I had suddenly decided to change lanes at that moment. I would have not even seen this vehicle flying up the highway behind me, ready in a flash to overtake my vehicle. After that incident, I made sure that when I was playing at my banking maneuvers, that I always had a good look in my rear view mirror, straining my eyes to see if I could make out a light-less vehicle travelling at high speed. It never happened to me again, once is enough to get your attention for that sort of thing.
Sometimes I tried to guess what other cars on the road were heading to the airport like I was. It felt like I could make assumptions based on the lane the car moved into, or their car’s posture as we neared the airport exit sign. I hit it right about 50/50 most of the time, just something to amuse myself with as I made the quick drive to work. This drive would not have been quick if it were in the middle of morning rush hour. So I felt privileged somehow, being one of the few people out and about at that time.
Once you get closer to the airport, you start to see signs of life around you. Not a lot of life, but some other cars driving into the parking lots, or the odd person walking to or from the airport as they start or finish their latest shift. The airport always has people coming or going to it, it is really just the volume of people that changes throughout the wee hours of the early morning. Sometimes I saw no one else, just myself and my music, driving to my designated parking area.
I am always early arriving at a job, always have been. And when I say early, I mean 45-minutes early. I like the feeling that I can take my time and start my day without feeling rushed in anyway whatsoever. It starts the day right for me. Sometimes I would encounter someone else heading into the airport at the same time as me, but most mornings I was alone as I started my walk in from the parking lot.
When you walk into the airport, that is when the weirdest sensation can take ahold of you. It feels like there is no one else there, and yet this building is so vast, with it’s high ceilings and glass windows that go from the ceiling to the floor. Openness; quietness; solitude; the start of another day.
I always reflected on my position at the airport, at this time of the morning. I was one of many Screening Officers that would spend their day making sure that passengers were not carrying anything that they shouldn’t be carrying onto a plane. Making sure that everyone in the checkpoints were safe, and that your fellow officers were supported in any way they needed to be supported. It’s an important job, screening, and most of the 800+ officers that work at the Calgary airport take their jobs seriously. We know what we are looking for, and we work hard to ensure that everyone remains safe, including all of the staff that work at the airport, and the people that fly or maintain the planes. Everyone has to walk through security at some point during their day, that is the only way that someone can enter into the area beyond security.
As I would walk through security on my way to start my day, I would come out to the same scene every day, and yet it was so different every day. Depending on the weather; whether the tarmac was wet and shiny, clear and dry, or snow covered with unmarked whiteness, The planes would all be resting at their gates; no people on them yet, just waiting like the rest of the airport. Even the cockpits were shrouded in darkness, no pilots running through their pre-flight checklists, only darkness and a sense of waiting.
There is a peacefulness to this morning scene that I experienced every day. Everything has a purpose, and yet nothing has come to life yet; it was still dark outside and it is as though no one wants to be the first to disturb this sense of total calm. I was always thankful for this calm first thing, maybe that is why I enjoyed coming in so early before my 4 am shift started. I wanted to have those few quiet moments to myself, without the interference of people, and noise, and bustle, and anxiousness. Passengers always seem on the verge of anxiousness; they want to get through security as fast as possible, even when they are early for their flight. They don’t feel in control maybe until after they have gotten through the screening process. But even after they clear security, there is still a sense of anxiousness about them because now they have to find their gate, and they need a coffee, and they need a washroom, and where did they put their boarding pass, their keys for the car they left in the parking lot, the cell phone they had to part with for the few minutes of screening. All of these anxious thoughts invade passengers’ minds as they make their often confused way to their gate. And then once they get there, they wait for the next round of anxiousness, waiting for the agents to call their flight out and the boarding of the plane to begin.
And so one day leads into another at the airport. There are always the same players present every day; the passengers, the screening officers, the workers that keep everything running at the airport, the cleaners that work so hard to keep the airport shiny and clean, the pilots that get the planes where they are suppose to be, the agents that make sure that the passengers get where they are suppose to be, the flight crew that are able to keep the passengers happy and content during their short or long flights, the people whose job it is to just watch all the people, and make sure everything is running smoothly, and as calmly as possible. It’s a busy place, with hundreds of working parts. The behind-the-scenes places that passengers never see would boggle their minds, and make them dizzy trying to negotiate, all of the back hallways, and doorways that only those that have special security clearance get to see.
There is a camaraderie about sharing these special places with co-workers; seeing into the depths of the many layers of the airport. I am sure that many don’t take a moment to reflect on how special this right is, but I found myself always having a sense of wonderment at being allowed to enter into these special places, even on those mornings when there were no other people around, as I made my way to the checkpoint where I was assigned for the day. A quiet sit to gaze out the panoramic windows, seeing the planes that would slowly come to life as they were inhabited by people; hundreds of people, all going somewhere, or coming from somewhere, always in a hurry, always surrounded by noise, always waiting for the quiet of another morning.
This is what waking up the airport looked like to me every morning. It always felt like a special privilege to me, something only a few of us were actually ever privy to, something I want to hold dear to me as a job that I learned through training and hard work, meeting co-workers I embraced through friendship, and a special feeling that I know that I will never experience again in my lifetime; waking up the airport, there really is nothing more exciting than that, at those quiet moments between the end of one day, and the beginning of the next.
Photo Credit to Jason Ivey 2020
Continue my journey from the beginning, or my previous journey titled “Loss of a Friend“.