Since I can remember, I have always been enamored with hotels. Something about them, the check-in process, lugging your bags to a novel space, the uniformity, it's still beautiful to me. Even in the worst motel rooms I've slept in, lulled to sleep by dreams of bedbugs crawling through my skin, I have felt a pervasive sense of awe.
They really let me do this?
It's crazy! It's totally absurd that I'm allowed a whole unit of space to sleep in. it's absurd that the linens are somewhat clean even though they've touched hundreds of bodies. It's absurd that the magical plastic rectangle you hold somehow enables you to open a door. It's absurd there's a whole pool and you're the only one in it.
This love of hotels has surely fueled my current photographic fascinations, especially what the modern internet calls 'liminal spaces.'
One of my favorite activities in a new town is to find the weirdest empty hallway with the most discomforting wallpaper that rejects visitors, pushing you away with stillness and fluorescent lighting. Speaking of, something about those white tubes filled with mercury vapor is truly magical. Bathed in weird off-white light, I feel truly comfortable.
Back to hotels.
One of my fondest memories from childhood is walking the thrillingly empty halls of a big-town hotel by myself. I rose from my slumber early, after my family had already went to breakfast. It is one of the first times I remember being alone with my own agency. I walked, slowly, through the hall, to the elevator, and rode all the way to the ground floor. Although I am unsure of its location, this hotel had what I remember being as one of the biggest glass fronts I had ever seen on a building. It was massive! Light poured from the front all the way through the check-in desk, back to the atrium, and beyond to the lower-light breakfast buffet. Breakfast buffets are my favorite. I love to eat, and I especially love to eat breakfast.
This breakfast buffet had what I remember to be a panoply of delicious foods competing to be placed on my plate with little black plastic tongs. Eggs, bacon, waffles, pancakes, french toast, fruit, bagels, pastries, everything a boy needs to grow big and strong. I dished out hearty servings of most of these things and brought my plate back to my parents table with a grin the size of the moon. I can be no prouder of myself than when I eat what initially looks like an insurmountable amount of food. Comments go around the table "Woah, Parker, are you gonna eat all that?" "Are your eyes bigger than your stomach this morning?" They may have been, but the way I choose to remember is that I conquered my plate, consuming everything, loading my belly to the brim! And to wash it all down, I am sure that I had several glasses of orange juice
This is what brought me to thinking about this, is orange juice. Industrial orange juice from a hotel-style dispenser is universal. The one thing binding every low to mid quality breakfast I have ever consumed. From a hotel lobby in Amarillo to my favorite diner in rural Indiana back to a Flagstaff university dining hall. It's the same orange juice. It tastes a little like metal and a little like the plastic cup you drink it out of. It doesn't really taste like orange juice, it's more of a vague approximation of what orange juice could taste like.
But it doesn't matter. When I drink this orange juice I am not seeking a novel, delicious beverage. I am seeking a sip of reminiscence, of a time gone by. While I don't think it's amazing to linger in the past, I think it's appropriate to savor it, and, from time to time, to let ourselves experience the comfort of a familiar metallic glass of orange juice.
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