Perhaps I’m just sleep-deprived, but staying in a hotel is a collective experience. It’s a place where communal consciousness should run high. You’re stacked (in many cases) on top of and/or beside strangers. And strangers have different habits. Back in my hometown of Franklin for my mother’s funeral, there aren’t many options for accommodation. Her last years in this region were spent in the small “suburb” of Oil City called Seneca. An ambitious Holiday Inn Express visionary put a not-exactly-cheap establishment in this economically depressed area. It’s generally a pretty comfortable place to stay. I am, however, an early riser. (I know this can’t be easy on my family since I go to bed early and that means televisions have to be kept low after 8 p.m. I’m part of the problem.) As I say, it’s a collective experience. I’m constitutionally incapable of sleeping in, so late nights lead to sleep-deprived days.
Around 1:30 new upstairs neighbors checked in. Walker, Texas stranger types. Heavy-footed with a penchant for running. Their arrival awoke me at a dangerous hour since any time after midnight my body says, “You’ve had a few hours’ sleep, and dawn’s not that far off.” As I groggily tried to remember relaxation techniques, my mind kept getting sucked back to our New Jersey apartment. We rented the first floor of a house and one set of upstairs neighbors had a son who would run back and forth the length of the apartment, shaking all the light fixtures, knocking down plaster, and breaking concentration. And sleep. One particularly memorable work night, said urchin was leaping off a bed and running at about the same time as our late visitor last night. The husband had a police record but we had to call the landlord for an intervention (I had to get up at 3:00 to be ready for my early bus).
When staying in a hotel, we’re living a model of life in community. I think of this as a parable. Societies thrive only when everyone considers the effects of their actions on others. Arriving at a hotel after a long drive, kids are full of energy (I was, believe it or not, once one myself). Still, if children aren’t taught that strangers are sleeping below, as adults will they ever internalize the message? Or maybe it’s simply the trauma of those disturbed and frustrating years of constantly pounding feet above my head that have come back to me at an inopportune 2 a.m. I have a funeral later today, but perhaps I’m just sleep deprived.
