“That’s all we want in the end, to be acknowledged, to be appreciated, and to be told we’ve been missed and loved.” ~ R. M. Drake
I promised you the rest of my story at the Balsam Mountain Inn, so you shall have it. As I said, I was in love with the place the minute I saw it. I walked inside that beautiful lobby and fell in love all over again. I got to my room and was wowed by it, especially since it had two rooms, each with a bed. I asked for something smaller since I might be denying someone a needed place to sleep, but this was all they had unless I wanted the bridal suite on the third floor. No thanks. The door closed – it had been held open by a brick – and reality set in. There was no TV, coffee pot, or blow dryer. No mirror in the bathroom. You couldn’t let go of the sink knobs or the water would stop. The rooms were heated by radiator heat that could not be controlled in the rooms, and as I said before, there was no insulation to the outside or to the interior hallway. Remember I said the hotel was built for summer use, and that has drawbacks in winter. It dipped to freezing the last night I was there. The room was temperate. All was not lost, though. There was hand soap, shampoo and conditioner, towels and washcloths, and clean bed linens. It also had Wi-Fi, but it was weak as a dial-up. I giggled and thought to myself, “There’s no way Shero, Stacy, or my aunts Lois and Barbara would ever stay here, I don’t care how quaint it is.” Still, I loved the building, and I could tell the couple was really trying to make a go of it, even if some things were lacking. I wanted to help them, and I had to get going to the conference opening ceremony. I stayed. I slept great once everyone in the hotel settled in for the night. Did I mention the lack of insulation in the interior walls meant I could hear everything in the hotel? If people were in the lobby, I could make out what was said… from the second floor.
The second night of my stay was particularly eventful. I was streaming the Vicar of Dibley from my laptop (somehow, the dial-up wifi was fine with streaming), and I was just about to fall asleep when I heard three short taps, and then my door cracked open. I was lying facing the door with the covers up to my head because – no insulation – I opened my eyes and saw a youngish white man, clean cut with brown hair, about 5’10” and a slim build, who very quickly said, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” and gently shut the door. In the many decades I have travelled across the country and beyond, I have never had anyone come into my room by accident. This was a first. Yes, the door required a key, and it was locked, but beyond that, there was no secondary security lock. I suppose it’s possible one key fits all the locks in the hotel, and if you happen to get the wrong room number, surprise! Good thing he didn’t open the door to the bridal suite, I guess. Now, a normal person might have panicked. I’m not normal, if ever you had a doubt, so rather scream bloody murder, I sat up in bed and stared at the door, wondering if what just happened really happened. I mean, I can be quite the lucid dreamer at times, but given that I still heard people milling about the hotel and that I wasn’t yet asleep, I knew it was real. I giggled again, got up and checked the door, adding the brick to the bottom as my only source of….what? Additional noise if the door opened again? And then crawled back into bed and went to sleep. If I had been anywhere else in this country, I would have done something about it because it really would have freaked me out, but I felt completely safe in this hotel. Despite lacking amenities, there wasn’t one thing about it that made me feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. I felt like I was among my people; people who understood me, shared similar values and humour, and were genuinely trying to do something good. They sure weren’t in it for the money, which told me a lot about what they hold dear and important. I’ll go back and stay again. Obviously, I’ll have to go alone in summer because I don’t know anybody at this age who would go for radiator heat and strangers popping in to say nighty night. Ah, but what a stellar adventure.
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