BAGGAGE
I have written here about discovering in my old age, as I travel abroad to Greece or Morocco for a month at a time, that I can take everything I need in a carry-on bag and a backpack and that this gives me a great sense of freedom. In my carry-on are two sets of clothes (half of which I am wearing on the flight) and through the magic of digital devices and the Internet all of the ebooks I could ever read, all of the music I could ever listen to, all of the movies I could every watch, and connections to everyone I care about in the world are right here in my carry-on bag. It means that I can live anywhere and move from place to place freely.
So when I realized that I wanted to downsize and move to smaller place, I somehow imagined that all I would have to do is to pack everything I needed into a backpack and carry-on and walk out the door and move. I dreamed of selling my small house, but is much too big for me, and moving into a self contained tiny house called and EcoCapsule entirely heated and cooled by solar power with rainwater enough to flush the toilet and wash dishes and myself.
What a fool I was. When it came time to move to an apartment with half the room of my present house with little storage space, I discovered, to my dismay, that I couldn’t pack my carry-on and step from one house to another. I still had a mountain of stuff to deal with. And that is what I have been doing for the last two weeks and face doing in the next two weeks, sorting out what to throw out or give away (40 boxes of photography books so far and more books to come). It is a Sisyphusian task, a hell of my own creation.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 