8/365- Hotel Codorus

Digital Art by Tracey Grumbach

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

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I was lying on my right side, eyes closed as the veil of sleep was being lifted from my body and mind. I slowly opened my eyes, disoriented and confused, staring at the gold wallpapered wall in front of me. Where was I? Where was everyone else? For those brief seconds of unclarity, I started to feel panic rise in my gut, hot and true. I was briefly in another world, another dimension where I where I was not welcome and where I didn't belong. Just as the panic reached my throat, the thump of another hotel door slamming reminded me of my location, escorting me back to here and now--to this hotel room in Orlando, Florida.

Have you ever woken up and had no idea where you were? It is a very disconcerting feeling to not know your place in the universe. I wonder if this is a bit how having amnesia feels?

Until tomorrow...

xo