This post speaks of my adventures whilst packing to move to Seattle. One dominant feature of my moves before has been the crap I carry with me from place to place. Now, believe you me, simply saying 'crap' in the previous sentence took a lot of will power. Why? We shall get to that now.
Attachment. I am horribly attached to all those little knick knacks from back home. I brought a boatload of socks, underwear, shirts, pants, zoo animals, cooking stuff, masalas and other paraphernalia with me when I came to the US in 2008. You would not believe how hard it has been to get rid of any of these things except for the zoo animals of course ( ha! Didn't think I was coming back to that did you? ). They sort of ran off on their own once I landed.
The masalas went first. This was mostly just because they expired and had to be thrown out to avoid digestive distress. As I cast each packet out I would read the label or the manufacturing information or some other piece of banal writing and I would be overcome by homesickness. Or perhaps in this case I should say retail homesickness.
A bunch of the clothes went next and this was thanks to bedbugs. Gainesville being a college town seems to attract a fair number of these pests and once they strike it is infernally difficult to get rid of them. I have known some of these little demons to survive a wash and dry process. Even if you squash one you end up with a nice red splotch on whatever surface the little cretin decided to claim for itself. So I bundled a lot of these infested clothes up in garbage bags and put them out in the Floridian sun. Every time I would walk back in to the flat from classes or something I would see those bags sitting there; gathering dust, bugs, leaves, friends of aforementioned bugs, twigs and the occasional spider. Every glance resulted in guilt lancing into me as I remembered my mother picking those clothes out for me, packing them the night before I left and so on. Never once during those spirit quests did I remember that these clothes did not really fit me anymore (No one had told me about the miraculous cloth shrinking abilities of the dryer machine) and so I suffered. Eventually I tossed them out when I moved to NJ.
The move to NJ was good because I drove up in my Corolla and so I could only carry stuff that fit in there. A lot of clothes went out of the proverbial window and I was only carrying a semi boatload of crap which at this point consisted of expired medicines, torn socks (yes, they survived the culling), dry socks (not to be confused with the torn ones), shrunk shirts (yes, there were more), shrunk pants (though not to the extent of becoming shorts. The shrinkage alas was proportional) and a lot of masalas and cooking utensils. How did the masalas get a second wind? Well, I went to India again and guess what I brought back with me. Yes. Exactly. More masalas. This time in bigger more expensive looking packets optimized to enhance guilt like never before.
Most of the drive, Jamie and I had to estimate what the rear view mirror was showing since we could not see it completely due to the stacked guitar cases and half stack head. 'Twas a fun journey.
The real culling came when I moved from 40 Newport Parkway to 30 Newport Parkway, which are actually neighboring buildings in the same bloody compound. The bed bugs returned for round 2 (Now presenting! Saving private bug and Behind exterminator lines) and even more clothes went into the trash. This time there were images of my mom taking me to the tailors and getting these stitched out interspersed with my her rants on how much it cost and also an unabridged accounting of the trouble I was causing her. How much more could I take before I broke?
Pots and pans into the chute
Torn socks too, no they're not cute
Shirts and pants, that fit no more
Hand them over, they're out the door
Spice and powder, long gone from grace
Rather shoot your tummy in the face
They all must go, they all must go
this pathetic rhyme must end somehow
All of this led to the present. Scene opens on yours truly sitting on a bed holding a disgruntled looking sock with a truly contemplative expression. Just to clarify, the contemplative expression was on my face and not on the sock though perhaps in a parallel dimension there was a sock with...right, back to topic. This guy had made it all the way from India in 2008 to Jersey City in 2012 and it felt almost like a crime to toss him away. I did end up doing it however. Each article of clothing thrown into the trash bags causing yet another tiny wound to open up inside.
Here's the thing though, while it hurts to throw stuff away, it is also amazingly therapeutic. Ever heard about the whole "Letting go" line of thought? Well, it's true. You accumulate so much stuff through the course of your travels that it starts weighing you down both figuratively and literally. Letting go of these things is liberating and you can move on along whatever course you are holding to.
All that being said, I am still going to have to put some major fires out when my mom comes to visit. I can already hear it "Where's that blue shirt? I had to fight predator to get that tailor to safety so that he could stitch it for you. People died Nikhil! People died!" and so on.
So yeah, in memory of that sock and it's brethren.
-Magus.
Attachment. I am horribly attached to all those little knick knacks from back home. I brought a boatload of socks, underwear, shirts, pants, zoo animals, cooking stuff, masalas and other paraphernalia with me when I came to the US in 2008. You would not believe how hard it has been to get rid of any of these things except for the zoo animals of course ( ha! Didn't think I was coming back to that did you? ). They sort of ran off on their own once I landed.
The masalas went first. This was mostly just because they expired and had to be thrown out to avoid digestive distress. As I cast each packet out I would read the label or the manufacturing information or some other piece of banal writing and I would be overcome by homesickness. Or perhaps in this case I should say retail homesickness.
A bunch of the clothes went next and this was thanks to bedbugs. Gainesville being a college town seems to attract a fair number of these pests and once they strike it is infernally difficult to get rid of them. I have known some of these little demons to survive a wash and dry process. Even if you squash one you end up with a nice red splotch on whatever surface the little cretin decided to claim for itself. So I bundled a lot of these infested clothes up in garbage bags and put them out in the Floridian sun. Every time I would walk back in to the flat from classes or something I would see those bags sitting there; gathering dust, bugs, leaves, friends of aforementioned bugs, twigs and the occasional spider. Every glance resulted in guilt lancing into me as I remembered my mother picking those clothes out for me, packing them the night before I left and so on. Never once during those spirit quests did I remember that these clothes did not really fit me anymore (No one had told me about the miraculous cloth shrinking abilities of the dryer machine) and so I suffered. Eventually I tossed them out when I moved to NJ.
The move to NJ was good because I drove up in my Corolla and so I could only carry stuff that fit in there. A lot of clothes went out of the proverbial window and I was only carrying a semi boatload of crap which at this point consisted of expired medicines, torn socks (yes, they survived the culling), dry socks (not to be confused with the torn ones), shrunk shirts (yes, there were more), shrunk pants (though not to the extent of becoming shorts. The shrinkage alas was proportional) and a lot of masalas and cooking utensils. How did the masalas get a second wind? Well, I went to India again and guess what I brought back with me. Yes. Exactly. More masalas. This time in bigger more expensive looking packets optimized to enhance guilt like never before.
Most of the drive, Jamie and I had to estimate what the rear view mirror was showing since we could not see it completely due to the stacked guitar cases and half stack head. 'Twas a fun journey.
The real culling came when I moved from 40 Newport Parkway to 30 Newport Parkway, which are actually neighboring buildings in the same bloody compound. The bed bugs returned for round 2 (Now presenting! Saving private bug and Behind exterminator lines) and even more clothes went into the trash. This time there were images of my mom taking me to the tailors and getting these stitched out interspersed with my her rants on how much it cost and also an unabridged accounting of the trouble I was causing her. How much more could I take before I broke?
Pots and pans into the chute
Torn socks too, no they're not cute
Shirts and pants, that fit no more
Hand them over, they're out the door
Spice and powder, long gone from grace
Rather shoot your tummy in the face
They all must go, they all must go
this pathetic rhyme must end somehow
All of this led to the present. Scene opens on yours truly sitting on a bed holding a disgruntled looking sock with a truly contemplative expression. Just to clarify, the contemplative expression was on my face and not on the sock though perhaps in a parallel dimension there was a sock with...right, back to topic. This guy had made it all the way from India in 2008 to Jersey City in 2012 and it felt almost like a crime to toss him away. I did end up doing it however. Each article of clothing thrown into the trash bags causing yet another tiny wound to open up inside.
Here's the thing though, while it hurts to throw stuff away, it is also amazingly therapeutic. Ever heard about the whole "Letting go" line of thought? Well, it's true. You accumulate so much stuff through the course of your travels that it starts weighing you down both figuratively and literally. Letting go of these things is liberating and you can move on along whatever course you are holding to.
All that being said, I am still going to have to put some major fires out when my mom comes to visit. I can already hear it "Where's that blue shirt? I had to fight predator to get that tailor to safety so that he could stitch it for you. People died Nikhil! People died!" and so on.
So yeah, in memory of that sock and it's brethren.
-Magus.
