Whenever we are planning a big adventure, someone inevitably says, “Oh, you must be so good at packing.” Perhaps I am, compared to those who don’t travel, but if so, it never feels the way I imagine an expert packer would: in control, organized, and calm. Instead, I feel completely overwhelmed. For someone who changes her clothes at least twice a day if not more, the task of selecting a few outfits that can be worn not only all day but for days on end is really unpleasant. And then you have the shoes. I don’t know if I have ever gone on a trip with fewer than three pairs of shoes. For goodness ‘ sake, that would be insanity—five is usually the norm.
The guiding principle, though, is that everything must be easy to wash, look somewhat decent when pulled out of the bottom of the suitcase, and be able to be worn with a myriad of other items. Stripes and polkadots are out of the question, but then they have always been out of the question. My packing strategy is to lay out everything I might possibly wear in the room somewhere that won’t inconvenience Kevin, and then take passes at the pile as the week progresses. Items get moved from the “going” pile to the “not going” pile until I run out of time. The rule is that once something goes into the “not going” pile, it can’t come out, but I break that rule all the time, so the “going” pile grows and shrinks and grows again as the week progresses.
Miraculously, I always seem to have the same amount of stuff whether I am going on a hiking adventure in South America, a tour across Turkey, an expedition to the Ghanian rain forest, or heading to New York City for a few days. It all works out to be about 43 lbs worth of stuff and five pairs of shoes. Maybe I am an expert packer after all. Kevin has an entirely different strategy. First, if I didn’t nag him, he would start packing an hour before the ride to the airport. Imagine that craziness. Second, he not only figures he can wear the same pair of pants the entire trip, but also that it can be the same pair he has already worn for the week before the trip. We have some interesting packing conversations.
And then there is always the decision of whether to pack the cats. That’s a conversation held with the cats over several days.
