[Neglected] Packing for the Future

By the time you read this, I’ll be east of Cape Spear.

Close to 4,000 km east of it in fact, as the crow flies (and, presumably, the Air Canada plane). Which is strange to think about, considering that I wrote a bulk of this in my bedroom in Pasadena. Right now (then), there’s less than a week before we take off, and everything I have to take, all the last minute tips and suggestions, and any sort of a plan, are in a state of blissful disarray. Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll have at least some of that sorted out.

Or not.

Either way, fast forward to today, September 7^th, 2011, and unless I’ve been neglected à la Macaulay Culkin, I’m with an English prof, an actress, and a handful of Memorial University students, in a metal tube somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. The program is Literary London, and the idea is straightforward: read some books, see some plays, and get us some culture at a semester at MUN’s satellite campus in Harlow, England. We’ve got our return tickets booked for early December – I could link the course syllabuses (Syllabi? Hmm . . . ), but that wouldn’t really say a whole lot about what’s really going to happen during the next three months. All I know is I’ve got a new pair of sneakers, and I’m planning on wearing them out, one way or another.

I thought a lot about why I wanted to write a travel blog, and it came down to three reasons: (1) I wanted to keep family, friends, and the occasional enemy posted on what I was doing; (2) I wanted to have some reminder, after the fact, of the places I went, the things I saw, and the snide, sarcastic passing comments I made about it; and (3) it gives me a chance to be unabashedly, uncontrollably narcissistic. 

 Like that could happen

I’m excited – unabashedly, even. And I’m also in a bit of a panic, feeling like I should have spent the last few months reading travel articles and mapping out all the cool spots in Europe, so that I’d actually go into this semester with half a clue. As it stands now though, the only thing I actually planned for is a Katy Perry concert in London (that, by the way, is neither snide nor sarcastic). Turns out, whenever the panic mode sets in, I realize that if I had another year to get ready, I’d probably still wait until the week before to start Wikipedia-ing where I should go and why I should go there. Not having a schedule is part of the excitement at this stage in the game (read: it is possible to make blatant laziness sound desirable).

One last thing before I go. In a high school English exam, I came across this poem. I’m one of those English students who get that poetry is good, wonderful, liberating, healing, gonna save the world, etc., etc., but I’m one of those English students who just can’t get poetry (I usually skim just to get the gist, which apparently isn’t cool or like…good). Either way, this one stuck out then, and it still sticks out now:

Packing for the Future: Instructions

By Lorna Crozier

Take the thickest socks.

Wherever you're going

you'll have to walk.

There may be water.

There may be stones.

There may be high places

you cannot go without

the hope socks bring you,

the way they hold you

to the earth.

At least one pair must be new,

must be as blue as a wish

hand-knit by your mother

in her sleep.

Take a leather satchel,

a velvet bag and an old tin box –

a salamander painted on the lid.

This is to carry that small thing

you cannot leave. Perhaps the key

you've kept though it doesn't fit

any lock you know,

the photograph that keeps you sane,

a ball of string to lead you out

though you can't walk back

into that light.

In your bag leave room for sadness,

leave room for another language.

There may be doors nailed shut.

There may be painted windows.

There may be signs that warn you

to be gone. Take the dream

you've been having since

you were a child, the one

with open fields and the wind

sounding.

Mistrust no one who offers you

water from a well, a songbird's feather,

something that's been mended twice.

Always travel lighter

than the heart.

Not only do I have new sneakers, I have half a dozen new pairs of socks, too. Maybe I’m more prepared than I thought.

Cheers,

rb