Rest assured. The United States is a safer place today. A middle-aged mom flying home to Vermont after attending a yoga teacher training in NYC was pulled aside during airport screening for a high-security check. After all, it’s logical. I had spent most of my time in the city in terrorist-inspired activities like meditation and, well, yoga. And learning how to bring these activities to people in particular need (e.g., youth-at-risk, addicts, veterans).
The screening started innocently enough. I was chugging my just-purchased cranberry juice in the security line having realized (duh) that I was going to have to deep-six it before approaching the conveyer belt and x-ray machine. I lined up three grey bins, having learned on the trip down to NYC that traveling in December means volume and this was the minimum. Feeling no longer parched, but deluged, I was ready for disrobing and scanning.
That’s when things got interesting. As I stepped through the metal detector, the alarm went off. It may have been my favorite pewter barrette, which I immediately took off, but further shedding of a belt, a watch, more barrettes, and had I had them, a partridge in a pear tree, the alarm was still buzzing. Then the guard looked more carefully at my I.D. Ok, here they were really doing their job. In preparation for leaving, I had grabbed my old passport. It had an updated picture in it, because they insert a copy when they process your renewal, but the passport itself wasn’t current. My primary form of identification, a driver’s license, doesn’t have a photo and is a little dog-eared. These same documents had gotten me to NYC, but what flies in Vermont, where there are still more cows than crimes on a daily basis, doesn’t fly in a bigger venue.
That’s when my security status officially changed and they sent me to the puffer. Don’t ask me what this machine actually detects. I was told to line my feet up on huge yellow footprints and stand still. (Clue: Terrorists may have big feet!) Puffs of air came out from all sides, a bit like a Glaucoma test at your annual eye exam, but with head-to-toe coverage. Even though nothing blared or buzzed, I was taken aside by a security guard for further screening. My belongings were clogging up the end of the conveyer belt like a derailed Little Engine That Could, but she repeated firmly twice: “Don’t touch anything.” She indicated that I had been selected for a higher security screening and needed to follow her explicit directions. She proceeded to grab my things and walk me to a nearby station.
In the designated area, two other passengers were receiving high security screening. One was a man in a wheelchair and the other was a woman who was recovering from a serious illness, as her head was bald and her face said in a sad way, “Enough already.” She was explaining to another security guard about the metal rod that had been inserted into her right leg.
At this point, the guard with me, her hands protected by medical gloves, started rubbing a white cotton swab over the edges of my laptop. Was she looking for traces of bomb chemicals? Then she began to search through my baggage. She told me that higher security checks happen randomly or selectively. She asked if this typically happened to me when I was traveling, her tone implying that it simply does for some people. I responded politely, “No,” and after she rummaged a bit more, I was allowed to re-accessorize, grab my bags and released to catch my flight.
Now I’m home and reflective. It’s essential that security personnel don’t make assumptions or trade in biases (e.g., suburban mom; looks ok vs. fill-in-the-blank). They’re working with a little bit of information and have a huge job. Then again, when the high security area is filled with passengers who look like they could be on their way to a workshop on the American Disabilities Act and/or a Buddhist retreat center, you have to wonder what the face of real terrorism looks like. Or whether the security itself can insidiously become another form of it. Is there some quirky parallel here to what my dear friend, the seasoned 9/11 New Yorker, said about the subway bomb threats circulating after Thanksgiving this year: “Terrorism isn’t the subway threats; it’s staying home because of them.” If this is true, are we living in a world layered in terrorism, defined only in part by the terrorists themselves, but even more so by our responses to actual or perceived threats?
I only know this for sure. Before my next trip, I’ve got two tasks: find my current passport and get to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a photo I.D. And if I’m looking for a ray of sunshine in the dark security corners of our post-9/11 world, maybe it’s this: The DMV is the only place that can make airport security look like a brisk walk through the park.