Hotel Holiness

I walk into each new hotel room, look at it suspiciously,
shake its clammy hand and gingerly put my suitcase down.

I unpack my makeup, put my mascara and lipsticks in a water
glass, hang up my coat. I see what cable channels I have, check out the room
service menu for any items that aren’t medically contraindicated. I wait for
the crashing sound of the ice machine — which is inevitably next to my room —
to shatter any sense of peace I can muster in the presence of an orange bed
spread that’s about as sanitary as the crumpled Kleenex of a tuberculosis
patient.

Such is my routine, one I’ve developed being on the road 20
days a month for almost eight months now. I like to say it’s like being a rock
star, without all the bothersome cash and chicks.

I set up my laptop on whatever desk or side table I can
find. Shirts go in one drawer, protein bars and a travel bottle of tequila go
in another, shoes go on the floor of the closet. I put a vanilla candle up on a
windowsill and set up my little CD player. For some reason, the only thing I
can listen to on the road is Eminem; I’m angry, I’m lonely, I’m alienated, it’s
me and Em against the world. I’m also employed, so I gut it out.

It’s hard to complain when you’re working in your chosen
field, but I miss my old life. I guess that’s why I try to create routine
wherever I go, whether it’s a Hilton in Charleston or an Embassy Suites in St.
Petersburg.

I’ve picked up some new habits on the road — and none that
would land me in rehab. For one thing, I’ve taken to going to any lengths to
call my dad. Almost every day on the job — I work on a home decorating show so
I’m generally in the home of a stranger in some quiet suburb — I cross the
street, find a large vehicle to hide behind and dial dad on my cell phone
crouched in the shadow of a pickup truck. We were always close, but I never
needed to talk to him so frequently until I found myself rootless.

Mom gets calls, too. Then dad gets a call because he’s the
only one who truly understands how crazy mom is. Then I get sick, a frequent
occurrence on the road for some reason, and I need my mom. So far she’s gotten
calls from two emergency rooms, one after-hours clinic and a hotel store. “Does
this pink stuff really work?” I ask her. “Mommy!” I screech, which is very
undignified at my age.

“Where are you?” she asks. “I can be at the airport in an
hour.”

I don’t need her to come but I need to know that she would.
It’s more healing than any pink stuff.

The few friends I keep in touch with have become even more
central.

And there’s another thing. There’s the God thing.

Years of writing this column and I don’t think I’ve ever
mentioned that word. I couldn’t grasp the idea of a divine power. I still
can’t. But whatever that thing is that I don’t fully understand, I’ve taken to
talking to it. You know, help me through this, help me not unravel today, help
me not yell at anyone, help me get out of (insert city) without a feeding tube,
help me be useful. Sprinkled in with the “help me” type prayer is the “thank
you,” not necessarily because of the incredible gratitude I feel for my life
but because it seems rude not to say thank you after bugging God for so much
help without even necessarily believing in him/her/it.

When you have nothing familiar, nothing to call your own, no
one you love or trust in your immediate environment, when you’re desperately
lonely, you get really holy really fast. At least I do. And I hear chaplains
are very popular in prison.

A friend of mine, who I consider far more pious and
therefore way more entitled to discuss the G-word, compared being on the road
to being a wandering Jew. When the Jews were in the desert for 40 years, they
only had their community and their God. It was a time of nation building and
religious development. Maybe I’ll have to wait 39 more years before that really
kicks in, but the metaphor is a nice one.

It’s like when you lose one sense, the others are
heightened. When you’re shuttling through a desert of suburbs, maybe your sight
gets sharper without the fog of the familiar, you see what you really have:
family, a spiritual life, things that don’t fit under the seat in front of you.
Of course, sometimes I think all I’m really getting is frequent flier miles and
exposure to every germy airport microbe, but you never know. I have yet to see
a burning bush, but I do hear hotel bedspreads are pretty flammable.   

Teresa Strasser can be seen Fridays 8-10 p.m. and weekdays at 5pm on TLC’s
“While You Were Out” and is on the Web at www.teresastrasser.com.