Staying in a hotel always puts things in perspective for me, Im not sure why. Something about the isolation, I think, even though Im surrounded by hundreds of people. Its sleeping in a bed that has seen the tired bodies of countless others, a room that has watched silently as hundreds if not thousands of occupants have gone about their hours spent within its walls, many never pausing to think about those who came before or who will come after. The silent noises crash around outside my rooms door and through the walls, the noise of the street below as someone moves through playing drums (why the hell??) break open the would-be sleep daze I had achieved at around 9:30pm. Then the waking up and running through a familiar routine in an unfamiliar place that is somehow familiar in its hotel-ness. The familiar yet strange toiletries, bathroom, work station, etc. lurking in the shadows of the morning through heavy curtains, the familiar bland (and lets face it, kind of gross) coffee with exactly two creamers and two packets of sugar and sugar substitute waiting alongside the new yet still ancient-looking coffee maker. Every element culminates and snowballs as checkout time draws near, and I find myself milking every second of time spent here, to somehow get my moneys worth out of the room, even if it is a lifeless thing long-since drained of home, because dammit, money. If I had been told 15 years ago Id be able to stay in a hotel AND pay the credit card bill at the end of the month, Id have laughed. Hotels bring out those memories, though, of apartments left empty on moving day, of new apartments piled with boxes, and a life somewhat on hold until Tomorrow or Next Week. And here we are, you and I, drinking our respective morning beverages and contemplating possibly the same things, all the while separated by paper thin hotel walls but sharing a desire to go home.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:28:12 +0000
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