By Ellie Sorota
Residing at home sure beats residing from a suitcase. My great-grandfather, Po, always kept a suitcase packed for adventure, and occasionally would march up the stairs after work and right back down, suitcase in hand, saying, “Pack a bag, we’re heading out.” That’s a hat tipped to adventure that I never wear. I enjoy the process of packing a suitcase too much to deny myself such pleasure by keeping one at the ready, as if every adventure requires the same props. Traveling brings a host of possibilities, and a proper suitcase should be ready to take advantage of them. Unfortunately, like all things pleasurable, packing for an adventure requires a great deal of effort. At least, my packing routine requires a lot of effort, and thus, exists Packing Day.
The first step on Packing Day is cleaning the apartment, top to bottom. Since I later empty my entire wearable wardrobe on the bed and pull out every toiletry item I own, naturally, I must have a clear slate. Packing coincides with taking a trip, which is a shame, because forcing my life into a 24”x12”x4” square frame causes an unnecessary evaluation of everything in my home. While cleaning, I rearrange the medicine cabinet, polish silver and shuffle books. This is all part of clearing the slate, of noticing what kind of life I lead. This evaluation allows me to pack for life changes I’m willing to implement on the road, and so I note which aspects of my life I’d most like to take with me. Of all the packing steps, clearing the slate holds the most potential for backfire. On occasion, I have “cleared the slate” with such fervor that I don’t have time to pack. Such fervor, in fact, that once Noah arrived home to find half of the furniture rearranged and the other half in the midst of rearrangement with only enough time left to throw some clothes in a bag and rush to the airport. Packing Day marital spats teach me that trip-fervor can clean the slate of too much, best to leave the happy husband in tact.
After cleaning the whole apartment, I wash the laundry. I pair this with some slight ironing, gingerly taking a few pieces off the top of the three-foot ironing pile. By the time I iron the third garment, I realize I haven’t seen these clothes for months. In fact, these are summer clothes, and the summer clothes haven’t been unpacked from storage yet. I wonder what the middle of the pile hides and determine to iron my way through. A movie plays while I iron, passing the time. Before I know it, the credits are rolling and I’ve only worked through eight inches of pile. The ironing continues until I decide my iron will melt if plugged in much longer, by which time, oh joy, the laundry clothes sit in a cold dryer, comfortable wrinkles threatening to become permanent.
About this time, I regret spray-painting the lids of discarded jars a matching white so I can fill them with q-tips and cotton balls, only to determine they look like spray-painted mismatched jars and not the quaint collection of possibly-French-antique-catch-alls of my intention – a complete waste of time. I also, more quickly now, regret the time spent dusting each of the three hundred plus books in our library. Just because the spring cleaning list stands pinned to the wall with “Dust the Books” proudly uncrossed, does not mean that Packing Day is the time to humble the task with a violent slash through its middle; even if it is summer, and the summer list remains unscathed.
Next comes a break for a high-energy snack – like popcorn and a glass of wine, because my wrist still shakes from two hours of ironing and shaking popcorn kernels in a pot is about all my poor wrist can manage. Well, it can manage holding a glass of wine. Besides, I’ve already cleaned the kitchen, which I survey with pride while swirling my glass and letting out a miserable yawn. By now it’s early evening, and I’ve worked myself to exhaustion. I’ve lost all interest in my trip, let alone my apartment, not to mention my life. I want to put on a movie and refrain from moving for forty-eight hours, but I carry my popcorn to the bedroom, moving on to the next task.
The airline selects my baggage, with their per-bag fees. This seems unfair. My parents determine my emotional baggage, the airlines select my travel bags, the size of my wallet determines the size of my purse – when in life do I get to decide which bag to carry? I pull the “Magically Expands So You Can Trick The Airline Into Thinking You’ve Got A Smaller Bag Than You Really Do” bag from the back of the closet; the one that, when fully packed, will flip sideways when I try to roll it along and require two stewardesses to shove it into the overhead compartment while scowling and mumbling something about how I could simply remove a few items so it would fit. As if they don’t know that beginning to unzip that bag will be a Jack-In-The-Box TSA fiasco.
Now the magic begins. I pick a wardrobe designed to camouflage my every flaw so that everyone I haven’t seen in a while, and of course all the strangers I meet along the way, will think I am always this tall and thin. This involves trying on loads of clothes before I remember that I do not own magic clothes. Then I retry everything again to see if I can at least live up to my sister’s expectations (dare I aim to surpass?). I also like to take advantage of being in another city to try out looks I have no idea how to pull off. For example, when I saw the movie “The Mummy” I went on a trip wearing black leggings and wide leather belts over top men’s button-down shirts. It was the closest I could get to Rachel Weisz’s English-Librarian-Archeologist from the 1920’s look. I informed my admirers that my style was “Egyptian.” This trip, I’m attempting to dress up a bit more than I do at home, so everyone will think my work-from-home business requires lots of flair.
My selected toiletries must leave onlookers assuming several impossibilities: I haven’t traversed several time zones. My skin shimmers with oxytocin dew, not blemish inducing oily sweat. Those aren’t sunspots all over my face but sweet freckles; and finally, why yes! I am the same age as when I last saw you several years ago! I must also consider the difficulties of changing humidity levels. All of this consideration proves to be useless, naturally, because I only own a handful of products. All but one goes with me.
This trip, I attempt something I’m usually too frazzled to consider: I roll my clothes. Another necessity of modern air travel and baggage fees requires me to contain an entire wardrobe and toiletries in a suitcase the size of a lunchbox for a very large appetite. I even apply a savvy travel tip that I’d determined to save for old age, but after three hours of ironing am more than willing to attempt: I roll my outfits in tissue paper. Supposedly, wrinkles simply shrug out of clothes rolled in tissue paper. If not, I can use the tissue paper to re-gift clothes to my sisters when I’m informed they are “just a tad too small” for me.
The extraneous items I decide to pack always cause the most difficulty. Whenever I am going somewhere tropical, snowy or rural I pack my sky map, a simple calendar of two disks that show where constellations can be found at different times throughout the year. I rarely use it because, well, it’s rather difficult to discern what exactly I’m supposed to be looking for; but I am a curious person, and a curious person packs such things. I used to take my pocket knife/fishing pole/cutlery tool for the same reason. Now, however, such contraptions are deemed unsafe by the TSA. Personally, I feel much safer knowing that if a trip should meet some kind of calamity, marooning me on an island, I can fish, cut branches for a Swiss Robinson house, uncork wine, sew a dress of leaves and lure salvation with my little whistle. (I actually needed my tool once to repair my glasses, but that was in middle school.) There are always a plethora of accessories to choose from: will I decide to knit a scarf while sitting on a porch and sipping sweet tea? Or perhaps I’ll take up a new sport, like canoeing, and need a choice of hats. I’ll need a scarf if I go to a museum, a sketchbook for a beach vacation, and tennis shoes in case I decide to take up running in the choking humidity of a Midwest summer.
Books are the most difficult accessories to pack. If I choose the wrong book, the whole trip could fall apart. Honestly, a cheerful family visit proves difficult to muster when one is reading Anna Karenina. Often, I’m overambitious when it comes to how much reading I’ll achieve on a trip. Reading must be my determinate of how relaxing a vacation ought to be. If I pack three books, I intend to be relaxing quite a bit. If I pack only one, I plan to be entertained by slot machines or endless family interventions. Since I usually pack three books or more, I suppose I should take my own hint and try a vacation where quiet time and relaxation actually occur. This trip, I only pack one book. Well, only one fiction book. (I always take a plethora of spiritual books as well: This is the trip where I learn to forgive!)
When I’m packing, I always hold a few misperceptions dear:
1. I am bound to return refreshed from my vacation, so I pile into my suitcase all the things I wish I had time for at home, the things I would do in my imaginary relaxed life. Generally, these times remained untouched for the entirety of the trip (save one day when I fiddle with them out of obligation).
2. I am bound to return as a fitter version of myself. Sure, my string bikini doesn’t fit me here, but I’m home – why should it fit? If, rather, I sit in a hot tub, overlooking the Pacific from top of a cruise ship, icebergs drifting by, it will fit for sure. It’s the ambiance that’s not right, not my figure. Naturally, after the buffet-style eating on a cruise ship, I am less inclined to test my theory, and only wear the suit in the shower (Again, out of obligation. It did take up suitcase space, after all; even if not enough.)
3. I am bound to feel closer to everyone I’m traveling with by the time the trip is over. Instead, I come home ready to quarantine myself from humanity.
I suppose this may be why great- -grandfather Po kept his bag packed. He may have felt less exhausted at the start of a trip, but he missed all the lessons of Packing Day. I’ve thought about changing my routine, but without the exhaustion and introspection of Packing Day, I probably wouldn’t need a vacation.
