Night is washing away the city as I shut the industrial blinds over the single small window in my hotel room. At that moment I am unaware of which city I’m in since they all meld into one after awhile, when my eyes are drawn to the brightly lit Washington Memorial standing as a gleaming sentinel in the distance of an otherwise unfamiliar skyline. The sponsor of tomorrow’s seminar, Graham has just left allowing me to remove my shoes and loosen my tie. I am unable to focus my eyes as I squint at the small print on the placard that instructs me on how to connect to the internet. It’s amusing that internet access is provided for free but there is never a network cable in the room that allows you to utilize the connection. The idea of me walking to the front desk while a well dressed night manager, who speaks broken English searches the back room for another cable is insurmountable and beyond my physical comprehension. At this point in the evening the news is never good, plus the ability to resolve any issue of concern is limited. I dismiss the thought of accessing my email as the light from the overhead lamp all of a sudden seems exceedingly harsh accentuating the dull pounding above my temples.
This is the part of the day where a few moments of comfort are rationed out in thimble sized portions as I stare at a blank wall with my feet propped up on the edge on the bed. The relaxed posture is more a sign of numbing exhaustion than restorative rest as it requires too great an effort to move into another position. The day has been uneventful as I traveled a familiar route in an undersized regional jet next to an oversized governmental employee, who assumed I was a security threat the second she laid eyes on me. It was a day that I have repeated many times over the years, a day that requires no thought as it has become a reflex. Exiting the jetway, I smile to myself as I pasted gate 23 looking for the distraught faces of the broken toys, all the while knowing that my return flight tomorrow will place me in harms way as I attempt to depart gate 23. We will cross that bridge when we get to it, carefully tucking that future experience into a waiting to be filed portion of my tired brain.
Travel is full of surprises that are uncontrollable and unpredictable. It becomes an exercise in insanity to manage or hope to control the unplanned events. One must act as water would, take the path of least resistance; take the shape of the vessel that confines you. Today the taxi ride to the hotel in beltway traffic and the check in process took longer than flying half way across the country. It requires great mental conditioning to maintain an appearance of calm when all your thoughts are focused on pimp slapping the daylights out of the lady at the desk arguing with the manager over not getting her fifty cent portion of cheap instant coffee replenished in her room. Some troubling days, people cross over into the realm of hideous ugly insects that need to be extinguished or crushed under foot. I am concerned that I am finding it much easier to despise the average individual than ever before.
A powerful click in the corner startles me as the ancient hotel air conditioner roars to life making the drapes wave and part open in response. The air is immediately filled with a faint musty smell of mold as my skin senses the rise in humidity. The distracting loud sound temporarily makes me forget what I’m thinking about as my thoughts shift to tomorrow’s seminar. Graham mentioned that registration was much higher than expected and he had been told to expect almost a hundred people. The event organizers were nervous that they may run out of space and need to move the seminar to another location in the morning, which is always a recipe for disaster.
Why do I have no apprehension or uneasiness in tomorrow’s activities? Is it that I’m so trained that the routine has become second nature or have I desensitized my emotions so that it is of no real importance to me? Life will go on regardless of tomorrow’s outcome. My detachment peaks my interest as I delve into its origin. I will travel to a University in the morning I have never visited before and lecture for two hours to a hundred professionals none of which I have ever met before. I took the opportunity to completely rewrite and contemporize my presentation which usually keeps the adrenaline pumping and keeps my delivery fresh. My subject matter will be contrary to what the group wants to hear and the message will not be received well by many in attendance. In the past this level of uncertainty would keep me awake the night before, but not anymore. The more I ignore the audience’s feelings, the more I track mud all over their beliefs, the more I insult their intellect about not seeing the truth, the more I am respected as an authority. I have become immune from their laws of civility and social order. I have become their grin reaper, their black raven of change, their ghost of Christmas future, having little responsibility to heal or restore the path of destruction I create in their tenets and beliefs. Why are we so complaisant of the status quo requiring a sharp slap up the side of the head to start us challenging our everyday approach to life?
A small bead of sweat rolls down my temple as I notice that the hot air in the room is thick and dead waiting for the air conditioner to roar back to life again. I smile at the mess in the corner of the room from dinner. Graham was kind enough to bring me a rare treat for dinner from Jerry’s Seafood, its house specialty “crab bomb” with all the fixings including a cup of fresh Maryland crab soup. Since my flight was late and the seminar starts early he drove across town to pick up dinner. It was quite a scene, the two of us eating a three course gourmet take-out seafood dinner on the embarrassingly small table in the corner of the hotel room. Travel is always the ultimate contradiction of experiences.
Once again a loud click echoes in the room signaling the return to life of the air conditioner. The air fills with musty humidity as the drapes again parts open. Finding a momentary surplus of energy I get up from the chair and walk over to the window to insert my face into the cool breeze. Wondering if the Washington Memorial remains lit all night or does it disappear leaving only another dark unfamiliar skyline, I pull open the drapes. I am relieved to see the memorial’s bright white shape against the warm gray horizon. I stare a long time into its pure glowing form aimlessly drifting in thought about its symbolic power. Another click resonates from the window foretelling the hot still silence to follow. Walking to the bed I look back at the corner of the room and pull out the camera. Snapping a photo I turn the camera over and preview the image. Quietly I whisper to myself “just another Washington still life.”
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)
'Of Human Bondage', 1915
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)
'Of Human Bondage', 1915
