I spent part of my life traveling, and my first journey was when I was forty days old. My memory still holds the scent of hotel rooms—from Athens to Tehran, from Jakarta to London, from Washington to New York. Whenever I check into a hotel, I spend time sitting by the window of the room, watching the movement of life in the city where I have stopped, trying to discover it while sipping a cup of coffee, so that my tired thoughts—exhausted by long journeys and their hardships—may become clearer.
I sit and observe, filled with curiosity, gratitude to God for arriving safe and sound, and a growing desire to explore the place and the country. Once I leave the hotel and step into the street, the polished smell of cleanliness that fills hotel rooms fades away, and I come face to face with the city’s real reality.
I walk on and on, unconcerned with whether I speak the local language well; all that matters to me is discovering a new world, from Asia to America. That feeling of safety accompanied me on every trip—even when I asked a naïve question to an American border officer as he read the official invitation I had received from his country. I asked him, “Sir, in case of a problem, whom should I turn to?”
The man laughed, stamped my passport, and said, “No one—because you are safe. Don’t worry about anything. You’re in America, ma’am.”
I almost replied, “Exactly, I am in America: America of gun massacres, America of Abu Ghraib prison, America that supports the Zionist occupation.” But I held back, and my stay passed peacefully in the land of the Statue of Liberty of enslavement.
Passing through hotel rooms teaches us how short time truly is, and how any stay—no matter how long—remains fleeting, stored only in the archive of memories. Nothing can replace a long stay that allows one to truly know a country. I also recall how, on one occasion, I boarded a plane heading to Buenos Aires by mistake, before the flight crew realized the error just in time. I got off the plane while words of apology echoed in my ears from the flight attendant. I said nothing, and when I boarded the correct plane and fastened my seatbelt, I said to myself, “Argentina—the country you love—is not your destiny.”
