‘The Hotel of Multiple Realities’
— Joyce Chong
I keep finding myself in different rooms not knowing why I’ve come in or where I was previously. Sometimes I think it’s the room my mother or my husband is in, but, usually it isn’t.
This week, I have a wonderful creative non-fiction piece called ‘The Hotel of Multiple Realities,’ written by Emily Carter Roiphe for Longreads, it chronicles her journey of recovering from an aneurysm. Told as seen through a series of varyingly surreal and unexpected rooms, Roiphe draws us into the mind of a patient recovering from the strange twists and turns their mind makes as it finds its way back to the center.
Something happened to me. But which part of my brain is me, and how is this so called “me” derived from electrical impulses and neuro-chemicals, molecules traveling around at light speed through the subway system of myelin-sheathed tunnels and synaptic transfer stations?
With an eye for descriptive, empathy-evoking detail, Roiphe illustrates a moment in her life that is at once strange, trying, and oftentimes confusing, with the straightforward certainty that only a writer could invoke in such a moment of personal disclosure. ‘The Hotel of Multiple Recoveries’ is an exploration into the resilience and unknowable capabilities of the mind, and the potential for recovery and growth in the most unpredictable places.
In a week my brain, myself, and I were settling nicely into our new apartment. My husband and my friend live here with me. It’s not perfect but it’s good — good enough that the odds don’t terrify me quite as much as they used to.