Where my anal retentiveness argues with my need to get away.

I have always harbored a desire to travel much more than I actually get to do.  The notion of throwing a few things into a bag and jetting off to parts exotic is part of the story I tell myself about who I am.  My dad is from the “no stone unturned” school of travel, and to that end my childhood travels were equal parts kitsch and education.  He was never satisfied to travel from Point A to Point B exclusively, making good time and calculating good gas mileage.  No, my dad would take a few days off from work, load up the car, and set off with a destination in mind, and we’d stop at all the roadside attractions along the way.  My dad and I are such similar creatures in that we like to find out about things, learn history, see how stuff is made, go behind the scenes.  My dad is the original How Stuff Works guy. 

In preparation for a road trip, I’d always put together a survival kit for the back seat of the car.  As an only child, I had no one to argue with and no one to play with during long trips, so my kit contained reading materials, a pillow, and my Walkman.  I loved tuning in to radio stations all along the length of our trips, to get a glimpse of what people’s lives were like in towns I’d never heard of before.  As long as I could listen to the radio, read, and take naps, I was perfectly content. 

It was on trips like this that I learned to read a map, figure distance, time, and gas mileage.  I loved to read the billboards along the road, and still do.  Dad and I were always game for some roadside diner, general store, or farm stand, though our stops were sometimes limited by my mother’s delicate sensibilities and higher standards.  But some of my most peaceful memories are of sitting in the front seat with Dad while Mom slept off a travel-induced headache in the back seat, the two of us in our own world, a bag of red pistachios between us. 

I cling to that image of myself as a relatively carefree traveler, even though time and age have made me into something less than that.

I am not one of those girly-girls who packs 15 outfits, plus shoes, for a three-day trip.  At least I’ve got the clothing part of my packing downpat; pack stuff that’s interchangeable.  It’s the nonwearables that are wearing me out. 

I like to think of myself as an easy person, but when I start loading up on my “necessities” I start to realize that I am not easy at all.  I like to travel under the Boy Scout motto of “be prepared” and to that end I tend to overpack.  Of course I need my glasses and my contacts and their assorted solutions, plus my makeup (because my face ain’t what it used to be), and things of a medicinal nature (sinus meds, reflux meds, Neosporin, Bandaids), hair stuff, skin care (sunscreen, lotion, after-sun soother), and various and assorted things that I might need (tweezers, nail clippers, the Encyclopedia Britannica).  The older I get the more real estate I find the need to care for.  It’s maddening. 

I hope at some point to become that carefree traveller that I picture myself to be.  I realize that this will only come about when I finally let go of the last vestages of my vanity, and frankly, I am just not there yet. 

I write all of this because starting tomorrow, the Mox family will be taking the show on the road, to rendezvous with my (very large) extended family.  To that end, you won’t be seeing me around these parts until sometime next week. 

In the meantime, however, I am packing furiously. 

 

— Mox

Advertisements