I’ve always been very taken with hotel rooms. Not because of
their sanitized, neatly-tucked-edges look (which would delight any obsessive
compulsive), which promises comfort, but because these meticulously kept units
always have oodles of character. They gather personalities over the years, by
bits, from the numerous occupants who come and go.
When I was a kid, I used to explore the impossible nooks of hotel
rooms I stayed in, while my parents snoozed or conversed. What I found always
told me a little about who had occupied the room before us. A bindi stuck onto
the top right corner of the mirror (a woman), a bead fallen off someone’s
trinket (a decked up woman), a big pink nappy pin in one of the drawers (a
baby), a cigarette butt in an unreachable corner (a smoker)…
People set up makeshift homes in these impersonal spaces. And
they always leave transitory traces of themselves behind. Those seashells you
gathered, and the sand they came with, those wildflowers in a glass, that
matchbox on the windowsill…
When you walk away, you always leave a piece of who you were
in those hours and days. Maybe for someone else to discover.
