hotels and homes

i remember the first time they came: they stayed in that hotel in santa monica that reminded me of the place dad and faryl took me, michelle and sid, in monterey when i was about 11, the place where i slept on the window seat to the sound of the waves and seals. the first night they were here mom told me that OB had died, that he was put to sleep back in alabama where we left him with this woman who i actually believe is an angel. ive met two- her, and this woman who walked me down a bunny slope in north carolina when i was paralyzed with fear, when i was motionless with embarassment and the overwhelmingness of having equipment attached to your body that you were told youd get to. it was only a bunny slope, i felt sick with stupidity, but she says to me, "ive been skiing for years and i just stay on the bunny slopes-- they are plenty hard." and then once we got to the bottom, which seemed to take more than an hour, she skiied off without saying anything else. angels.
they stayed in that hotel in santa monica and i cried at dinner because i was trying so hard not to for the first months of college, because toben still wasnt sure and because sometimes i would say things to these new people and not know where the words came from in me- i felt so foreign to myself. i felt, even until october when they came, like every day was the first one at summer camp. that strange, malnourished sense of excitement and possibility mixed in with dread, with counting the number of meals until you get to be home again. i cried when they left and went running on the beach, wondering where all these faceless joggers lived, and if any of them had a family or a dead cat or a sort-of-boyfriend who still wasnt sure if you were good enough for him. those were the days when the sight of stationwagons made me sigh with relief and i would spent entire class periods imagining my professors houses, their kids, what theyll have for dinner and what time they have to set their alarm in order to be at school. the idea of home had become a foggy memory that seemed destinted to elude me for the rest of my life.
the second time they came they stayed in that self contained hotel with the stripes and we saw famous people at dinner. they met toben, who had, over the course of a year, decided i would do, and his family and that sunday night after they all had left toben and i went to the grinder on figueroa and sat on the same side of the booth and held back each others tears. he ate meat loaf and we tipped the waiter, the one who always remembered us, twice the amount of our meal.
the third time they came they stayed in the place kelsey's parents stayed freshman year, when she drug me to dinner with them so i could be the cushion between the sharp edges of her mother and her boyfriend, who called his car "miss pac man." this time, for the first time, we could talk about the times before, and we could track where we were then and where we are now. then, "now" was on its way to something even better, which we now realized, is now.