My capacity for self-deception becomes evident to me every
single time I travel.
First, I have this delusion that I’m some sort of
“experienced” traveler, that I “pack light” or only take “the necessities” when
I hit the road. But when it turns out you’re THAT lady at the airport, with a
long line of impatient travelers behind you, madly scrambling about and shifting the
contents of your suitcases all over the place to not go over the limit {who knew
the giant tub of guacamole you bought at Costco would weigh so much and also be
considered a liquid or gel by the TSA?} it really causes you to reflect
on the nature of your packing skills, or lack there-of. I might add it is also
thoroughly embarrassing when you can’t even lift your carry-on suitcase {sans-guacamole} up to the
overhead compartment because the rock-like contents {cheese, books, assorted
jars, unreasonable amounts of electronics, bark collars, what else of course?} prevent you from doing so. This, in turn, reinforces the fact
that you are a weakling and also raises a few suspicious eyebrows as to what
could possibly weigh so much when the strong man you have managed to recruit
also experiences a certain level of difficulty lifting your ridiculous
suitcase.
My friend Val “shattered my glass” about this a few years
ago when she told me, in passing, that she always thought of me as the type of girl who “always
carried around a bunch of bags.” Much to my chagrin, she was right.
Even on short road trips where most people would probably bring 1 bag, two at
most, I somehow manage to have to make multiple trips to the car with all
my junk; there’s the “snack” bag and then a cooler "bag" for drinks or snacks that
need refrigeration, my dog’s bag, my own bag, a camera bag, my purse, a hostess gift if we're going to someone's house…I could go
on…you can see I am an absurd human being and fit the description perfectly of "a girl who carries around a bunch of bags."
Another imaginary characteristic I like to pretend I possess, is that I think {somehow} I will manage to use all of those hours on planes and connecting airports in some kind of a productive manner. Reading the plethora of books I managed to stuff into my luggage, writing letters, listening to sermons or podcasts, maybe even writing “blog” entries or ideas…I even consider sleep productive under the circumstances, but before I know it, I’ve generally spent the entire time watching a few kids movies, usually some sort of drama, a Bollywood film & a handful of documentaries or tv shows. For the record, “Wreck it Ralph” was my favorite of the kid’s movies I watched this time around, “English Vinglish” was actually pretty good as far as Bollywood films go, and “Siberia Teaches” was a very interesting documentary about urban snowboarding in Siberia {side note: while trying to find a link to this documentary I stumbled upon this amazing music video of Ethnic Siberian Music}.
I suppose one could argue that watching movies isn’t entirely non-productive. It keeps me up-to-date with some significant cultural elements of American Society {and Indian Society for that matter} and prevents me from being swallowed up by boredom, I guess.
For some reason I am also always thinking that I’ll get
unprecedented amounts of reading done while I am traveling. I have never been
on a trip where I actually wish I had another book and didn’t. And yet, I
generally pack at least 2, sometimes 3. I try to rationalize this by claiming
that the genre of the book will have some sort of effect on my desire to read;
sometimes a girl just wants to read a novel, or sometimes a book about
economics…you never know which Steph will show up on the plane. But I never finish
more than one. Most of the time, I don’t even finish any.
When I studied abroad in Cuba, I was going to go on a little
side-backpacking-trip through the southern mountainous region, including
scaling their tallest peak, Pico Turquino. I had a small backpack, which needed
to have supplies that would last me about a week. Some of that time was going
to be spent on trains, buses and otherwise promising places to read a book
{nevermind that I have a tendency to get a bit queasy}, so what did I pack? Super high-tech and light-weight camping equipment? Nope. A
hard-cover copy of the Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. Have you seen that
book?!? It’s HUGE! Did I even have a headlamp for reading in the wilderness where we were camping
you ask? The answer is no. Did I read any of it? Not that I can remember. Did the
Cubans think I was an idiot? Probably.
 |
| Catching a ride for the first 1000 meters... |
 |
| Group shot with the bust of Jose Marti at the peak... |
***I am happy to report that I finished one book on this last
trip: “Ethnic America” by Thomas Sowell {I love that guy!} which I would highly
recommend. He is brilliant and insightful and I only wish he hadn’t written the
book in the 80’s because I feel like he kinda left me hanging…but nonetheless
it was super interesting.
With the amount of traveling I
have signed myself up for, I better start making some changes…or else you may
hear about this in some unfortunate later blog post.
