I finished teaching the second day of a five-day class, all techno-babble and computereze. I had dinner with a coworker, said good night and returned to my third floor motel room to study, or watch TV, or dial into the Internet, or maybe all three.  Instead, I went back down to get a newspaper and a cup of tea from the downstairs lobby.  I took them back to my room.  The Room felt stuffy.

 

I put the newspaper on the desk, sat down with the cup of tea and started to read the news.  Another UN military action was poised to go somewhere to protect human rights and lives.  The room is stuffy.

 

The President said that US personnel would be noncombatants, just inspectors.  Yet the next paragraph said that US might use Cruise Missiles if military action was necessary.  Damn! The room felt stuffy.

 

I decided to open the curtain to let in some of the evening light.  My mood changed immediately.  As I looked out across the back parking lot of the motel, I saw something appealing.  There, on top of a groomed grassy hill, even with my third floor window, are two picnic tables behind a row of widely spaced long needle pines.

 

I enjoy writing in my journal while outdoors.  I abandoned the newspaper and the stuffy room.  With my cup of tea and my journal, I walked outside and up the hill to the unoccupied picnic tables.  I sat facing the motel because the other way looked through a thin barrier of mixed trees buffering an interstate highway with its roar of tires racing past.  The trees were thick enough to hide the cars and trucks, but it also hid the sky in that direction.  I chose to face down the hill and across the parking lot with my motel filling most of the view.

 

The sun was setting somewhere to my left and behind that barrier of trees, but some of the pinkness in the blue sky glowed above the motel.  The view of that pleasant color was through the long needle pines’ clusters of skinny fingers looking something like bursts of Independence Day fireworks.  They were black in silhouette and are static.  They did not fade out within a second like fireworks.  They had quite an attraction for my eyes.  My mind wished to look at each cluster against the now darkening gray sky.  One looked like a powder puff, the one next to it like a Koosh.

 

Suddenly, I realized that I was hearing the crickets and tree frogs chirping, and occasionally a birdcall. Those sounds were not there when I first came up here.  I concentrated on their symphony and became unaware of the highway behind me.

 

On the Motel wall, I noticed the solo window for each of sixteen rooms on each of the three floors.  One blazed brightly with its curtain back while the others hid behind room darkening curtains.  I wondered what fool forgot to protect his privacy and left his window exposed like that.

 

A cat was suddenly there, to my right, statue-still as it discovered something very out of place during its routine twilight traverse of its hunting territory.  The cat had seen me.  It never before saw anyone at these tables.  The cat moved silently, swinging wide around me and disappeared.

 

The parking lot lights came on and glowed much brighter than the skylight.  I began to have trouble seeing what I was writing.  I wished for a light over the picnic table, so I could continue to write.  Again, I noticed that room with the bright light -- perhaps I should go there.

 

I returned to my room and closed the curtain for privacy.  Damn!  That room was stuffy.

 

               -- Bob Kuhns