Summertime Blues

Feeling a bit lost and quiet but still here

Hotel on Melancholy Boulevard
By Laura L. Hansen

After the weekend is over and all 
the families pack up their cars 

to go home, the rooms get quiet.
Windows are closed, curtains 

are pulled shut and though the maids
come by and remove damp towels

and replace twisted sheets,
the general sense of stuffiness

and gloom remains. The rooms
seem to hold their breath, 

like a child hiding in a closet.
A mini fridge clicks on,

realizes there is nothing to refrigerate,
and turns off again with a huff.

Streetlights blink on but little light
penetrates the combined fortress

of the blinds and the blackout curtains. 
In the un-booked hours, the rooms

don't know what to do with themselves.
They go dormant. My memory,

these days, is like an un-booked room
at an out of season hotel, front desk

unmanned, blinds and curtains
shutting out all the light. 

I am a dust mote in the dark,
an anonymous bed, an empty closet,

a hotel on an abandoned boulevard
in a city nobody fancies anymore. 

Paper Collage on Vintage Library Card by Laura Hansen

Next time, something more uplifting, I think. They talk about how the winter holidays are a tough time for older and single people, people with no where to go. I find that summer now that I am older can be hard - too hot, too rugged. The hiking and camping and swimming and boating I used to enjoy aren’t options anymore. Even the drive to and from a good vacation spot is tiring. So I write to you from my quiet rooms - truly, I don’t mean to sound so gloomy, it is good here, good home, comfortable, with a nice little yard and all my books and a dog that likes to bark and jump on my lap. I still work a few hours a week at the public library - another good place. So, there, we are fine. The skies are a bit smoky from the fires north of the border, but I can still see a slice of the river from my window and the nightly sunset and the daylilies are in bloom.