The Shelter of Urban Decay?

You know the address. You know where "that" area is. What do you call it? The ghetto? The bad neighborhood? Gangsta's Paradise? Was it you who said, "I wouldn't be caught dead there?" Yeah. I was morbidly curious, but that's not how I got there.

I was shipped there, like a package in the mail truck. Transferred from one ambulance to the next, like the couriers and postal offices. I had no idea where I was, but I instinctively knew that everybody knew the "address".

I remember when I got dropped off. I stood before that old rotting 12 story building, hearing the Eagles song "Hotel California" and wondering if it would be heaven or hell. Cement blocks and blocks and blocks of building after building lined up like dominoes. Floors and floors of rooms and rooms and the number of people in these concrete structures was difficult to fathom. Like ants. Millions and millions of ants in our colonies, hoping that our constructs would allow us to.... to what? Oh, to enjoy our room. You'd be especially "lucky" if you got a room with a view. I did not.

I rode the small scary elevator up to my room on the fourth floor. My hopes were crushed when I realized I had to share the room with another woman. She was quiet and peaceful enough, but having to share meant the room would never improve so I had to accept it exactly the way it was. It was ugly. Dark, dusty, stale, lifeless, old... like it had been existing for the past 30 years after having been diagnosed with cancer. The window was blocked by three inches of nobody cares, and the bathroom (still functioning at the most desperate level) contained memories of a time maybe 100 years ago when porcelain was cherished. I listened to the toilet bowl flush as if it were a song that only I could hear. I whispered to the porcelain about the beauty of the tops of cathedrals and promised that I would never forget our memories regardless of our destinies.

The other room I liked to dwell in was in the basement where the broken piano was. It was like a secret tunnel where few wanted to be. I think it was the broken piano that made most people stay away. Also, the smokers would hide down there when the weather was too cold for an outside smoke. I loved that room - it was so much better than "my" room. I liked sitting on the wobbly old piano bench and staring at the rotting broken piano keys. Only a few of them sang a note. I was going to compose a whole new song with any notes that could still play, but the others who did come down there just called me crazy and said I was wasting my time playing with a broken piano. They made it seem like there were only two choices: Die in some drug induced bliss or Die in some sex orgy madness. Neither of those deaths seemed to me the great finale that my life deserved. Maybe that's my pride talking, but I truly believe I should get a better death than those options. I doubt I get a choice, but I did make a choice in that room. I chose not to write a new song on the broken piano, and I chose not to hide in that dusty dirty room on the 4th floor. I chose to walk around on the sidewalks and look for any remnants of beauty left on those dirty city streets. I chose to see the shelter of urban decay.

Someone who remembered me, (family?) got me out of there. She must have understood that the Hotel California only had rooms like tombs. She must have cared about my survival. I guess that's what family is. Not a turkey on the table on Thanksgiving Day. No. Family is that person who knows you're stuck in a death trap, and somehow cares enough to send another vehicle to ship you to a better place, a better room --- A room with a View of Life ---- A Room where there is another choice besides Death.

It's good to have an experience like that. It's good to know the shelter of urban decay. It's good to know the difference between a dark room and a bright room or a dirty room and a clean room. It's good to know. Not so that you can complain when you get stuck in a dark or dirty room -- No. So that you can rejoice when you're in a bright or clean room. That's why it's good to know both rooms.