Summer life

I could tell you of the roomhunt that has taken me all over the city, sixteen hours in the trains, to a sketchy basement and a place where Internet didn't work, to neighborhoods where even sadness was shuttered. I could tell you about almost finding a place close to a beach but then it didn't work out. I could tell you about the delays in things, about the heat in a fanless room and the windy days. Summers in this country are strange for me - one day you sweat your flesh off, the next the cold wind whips you till you are indoors. If you sat for longer, I'd share with you the loss I feel at having left Minneapolis. It has just started to feel like home. I miss the softness of my bed, its wheel rolling predictably, of the calming creaks of my ceiling fan.  The incense that was mine, all mine. The comfort of the cool, bare wooden floors, sighing ever so lightly under my weight. Resting my cheek against the window, raindrops splashing lightly in the moonlight. Of the walks I took on familiar routes.

Packing zen

Travel is always an adventure. As is packing for it. Over the years, here are some of my feelings about packing for travel, compiled for your convenience in the form of a list:

• I will forget something. Even if it is a safety pin. Such is life. Let it go. As long as I have documents that identify me, it will be fine.
• Travel checklists are a pain to make the first time but can be super useful in subsequent trips.
• Wearing multiple layers of clothes to reduce baggage weight is NOT a good idea. It will mostly only overheat you and make movement hard.

Bittersweet

I am slight denial about moving, as if that would change anything. The weeks have flown by. Too soon, too fast. Same as ever. Life.

In those years by Adrienne Rich

In those years, people will say, we lost track

of the meaning of we, of you

we found ourselves

reduced to I

and the whole thing became

silly, ironic, terrible:

we were trying to live a personal life

and yes, that was the only life

we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged

into our personal weather

They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove

along the shore, through the rags of fog

where we stood, saying I

(I discovered the work of Adrienne Rich via Twitter and this is one of the poems I really enjoyed)

Schrödinger's cat

It is time to move, once again. Only temporarily though. I would both like to and not, a bit like Schroedinger's cat I imagine. To avoid the usually chaotic outburst that is my suitcase on arrival, I have been packing things in trash bags and labeling them. "Miscellaneous", "Socks", "Scarves" are some of the categories. There is an entire box full of supplements too. Adulting involves a healthy diet and then some. It involves moving alone, yet again, yet again. M has left town and it feels strange, surreal. I think this is the weekend where I am in denial about my trepidation about moving and sadness about people leaving, graduate school and other things ending. I've been really good at keeping it under control, putting out all the fires. But not this weekend. I have spent most of my time in bed this weekend.

Look no words!

This was the week in which I not only spent several hours on a still plane, I also was on a SuperShuttle, a flight, a train, a taxi, a bus, a MegaBus and an Uber cab in the span of 17 hours to get from Minneapolis to Chicago and back. Now that it is over, I'm still in a little bit of shock and I don't quite have a lot of words. So here's updates in pictures: 

This is my absolute favorite picture.
This toddler is having a tantrum in the White House.
Epic.

View from a bus stop in Chicago.
It was an overcast day.

Unbelonging

I think there is a moment in which you realize that you carry your unbelonging with yourself. It is a neat little suitcase that is invisible, and travels with you wherever you go.