Home Is Where The Hurt Isn’t
I.
Hotel rooms are the loveliest of places. Everything is fresh, perfect. A temporary home in a tower of travelers. I’ll keep your secrets, the hotel room says. You are safe here, you and all your selves.
You check in because you’re weary, or on an adventure, or having an affair. The hotel room is a tiny home in a giant world, where the receptionist has expressed her happi- ness that you are there. Her name is Carol, or Carmen, or Colette, and she has a nice manicure and ugly jewelry, and you’re happy to make her happy.
I am possibility, the hotel room whispers. I am a blank slate. You can be untethered here, be anyone you want to be. You came for some alone time? I support that. I’m proud of you.
In the bathroom the first square of toilet paper has been folded into origami. Aren’t I cute? You marvel at this little luxury, a fancy final act for a thing with an unglamorous destiny. Maybe there was also a towel folded into a swan on the bed when you arrived. I’m trying to woo you with my corporate origami. Is it working? You inhale the sharp appeal of bleach. You note the bougie-ness level of the free toiletries, a direct correlation to who’s footing the bill. How much did they want to spend on your hotel room? What does it say about your relationship to your boss, your lover, yourself?
The bedsheets are tucked tight into corners, the comforter a neutral shade of beige. No no, we call that color “Summer Latte.” For neutralizing the stain of coffee, semen, sweat.
You roll around on the bed like a miniature whale. You could pre-order breakfast, the hotel room suggests. You will awake to a muffin, orange juice and coffee, even though you already have coffee in your room. Thirty five dollars. Don’t judge.
There are fifty-two channels to flip through. Basic cable! A warm nostalgia.
II.
But after a few days, your clean paradise feels like a prison. It’s depressing to be in a room masquerading as your own, when it also belonged to the guy before you, and the family after you, and really it belongs to the maid.
Where once the bland painting on the wall was blessedly free of personal attachment, it’s now offensive in its non offensiveness. Maybe you peek behind the painting and see a doodle left by a past resident, and you become disgruntled you didn’t think to do something edgy like that. You’re starting to bore me, sighs the hotel room.
And also the plastic key is so plastic, and sometimes it doesn’t work, and you often mis- place it. How could you? the hotel room admonishes, as you lean your forehead against the door you cannot open with the spare key you cannot find. You trudge downstairs to Carol, or Carmen, or Colette, and she makes you another key, and then politely reminds you in an aggressive way that you must check out by 11am.
As you walk down the endless hallway with its mediocre lighting, you steal glances into other rooms and feel angry. All these single serving people in their single serving rooms in this single serving life.
III.
And so you go home, to the to-do list that haunts, and the unpacked boxes from when you moved in six years ago. The kitchen sink that never stops dripping and the oven that reeks of the birthday cake you accidentally broiled rather than baked. You never baked again.
Welcome back, your house soothes. And the voice of the house is that of an old friend, not seductive, not wish-fulfilling. No surprises here. No excitement, but no false hopes either. Welcome back to the dusty plants, the broken ceiling fan, the chipped mug that reads “#muglife.”
Outside it sounds like lawn mowers and barking dogs. The illegal roosters your neighbor keeps for cock fighting. The tamale man who comes around with his cart every day at 4pm and shouts, predictably, Tamalessssss! The ice cream trucks. Too many ice cream trucks. You suspect some of them sell drugs, or maybe you just saw that on a cop show once.
I’m perfect in my imperfection, your house suggests. I might not be as orderly as the hotel room, but that’s your own damn fault. You acquiesce. This isn’t just a house, it’s a home. And it’s yours. Your fist-shaped hole in the wall where you worked out feelings of abandonment upon the departure of your ex. Your pomegranate tree in the backyard from which you’ve harvested pomegranates but once, then lamented that you’ve become the type of person who uses words like “harvesting” when really - you just picked it.
You think of the hotel room, and wonder if it’s thinking of you. Who’s in you now? Who’s calling you home? You wait for an answer, but it never comes.
