The author’s hotels – Column by Magdalena Hai

TURKU TIMES COLUMN

Sometimes stories - and some certain stories - are born more easily in the self-imposed isolation that hotel living affords.

The author's hotels

Written by Magdalena hai translated by Christina saarinen

I’ve Seen mAny hotels in my life. These days, I mostly travel for work, to make author appearances in different parts of Finland and occasionally beyond. Traveling for work offers me a great opportunity to see hotels and places I wouldn’t necessarily come across as a tourist.

In one town made famous by its cross-country skiers, the hotel I stayed in was a studio apartment upstairs from a local restaurant. The view from the room looked out onto a cemetery. But it was only fitting – at the moment, I was working on a plan for a collection of horror stories. From the windows of another lodging establishment, founded by two young women in Northern Ostrobothnia, the view was endless misty ice. From the windows of a hundred-year-old hotel in Barcelona, I saw only a narrow slit of a courtyard. In Cologne, in a room on the seventh floor, I remember a broad windowsill, the length of the entire wall, with space enough that I could stand up on it. That trip inspired me to boldly throw myself into the novel I was planning at the time.

After making an author appearance, a hotel room is above all a place for rest and relaxation. But sometimes stories – and some certain stories – are born more easily in the self-imposed isolation that hotel living affords. Creativity flourishes in bounded spaces. So I also check into hotels to write.

Hotel life is a way to detach from the everyday grind, a way to step into a bubble where an adult person can let themselves be taken care of. Goodbye dishes, goodbye mental load! Living in a hotel feels safe and predictable, with its small check-in rituals, understated white plastic key cards, friendly chambermaids, and breakfast waiting in the morning. The writer is stripped of other responsibilities and has no choice but to write.

I like to believe that I’m an easy hotel guest. My first task is to hang the sign on the door that politely asks others to leave me alone. In the modern monk’s cell of my hotel room, I am both separated from the world and one with it. The sounds of traffic and people behind the window are no distraction. On the contrary, the muffled conversation of a group passing by the room or the soft bang of a door remind me that life goes on outside my writing bubble. Maybe that’s why my memories of hotels often revolve around windows and the worlds beyond them.

Hotels are an excellent breeding ground for stories, even if only for the traveling itself. I’m not the kind of writer who, like a nocturnal predator, nabs real conversations or people to use in their stories. But spending time both surrounded by human life and simultaneously on its edges revs a story engine that is fueled by being in this liminal state, by transience and movement.

Checking out of a hotel is rarely a sad moment. I’m often already missing home when I close my suitcase, pull on my shoes, and check for the third time whether I packed my phone charger. Closing the room’s door for the last time and returning the plastic key card to reception is both a mechanical task to be executed and a sacred ritual of taking leave. When I depart, I know that while I may never stay in that hotel again, I will always find myself back at a hotel. s

Magdalena Hai is an award-winning Finnish children’s and young adult author whose books have been sold into more than twenty languages. When at home, she drinks too much coffee and photographs the invertebrates in her garden.