A Fugue State

How packing is an existential crisis

I leave for India in little more than a week, and I’m having as much trouble concentrating as if someone had lit my hair on fire. I have traveled a lot, and often to faraway places, but still I get jittery and distracted each time, as if I’d never left home before. I channel most of my anxiety into obsessing about packing, running options through my head like math problems. If I take this, should I take that? When faced with travel, I lose all fluency in the human condition. I can’t begin to remember what it feels like to experience a daytime temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit (the projected daytime temperature in Delhi). I absorb that information and my mind goes blank, as if never in my life have I spent a day when the temperature was 74. I can’t explain this feeling: It’s as if I am reading something in a language I don’t understand and I’m struggling to make sense of it. What does 74 feel like? Is it… hot? Would a human person wear long sleeves in that strange, unimaginable climate? A sweater? A tube top?

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

To be fair to myself, there is a warm 74 and a cool 74, isn’t there? If it’s winter and there is a freakishly mild day when the temperature reaches 74, it feels like the earth has been engulfed in flame. On the other hand, in the middle of a sweltering summer, 74 can be a little goose-pimply, especially if there is a breeze. Either way, I am in traveler fugue state, where I can’t make sense of any data I’m offered. I’m baffled.

Every time I travel, I announce that this time I’m going to be chill; I’m not going to fret and will just, oh, you know, toss a few things in a carpetbag and trot off. I think I mean it when I say it, and I often assert other mad notions, like I’m going to only pack black clothes, because that’s what smart travelers do. I flirted with that black-clothes concept for this trip, but then I remembered Diana Vreeland’s statement that pink is the navy blue of India, which would mean that wearing all black might make me look like a bank robber in a land full of pink, and I lost my nerve. Years ago, I did go to Turkey with only black clothes and a few colorful scarves to lighten the mood, but the entire time I felt like a rookie who read a travel blog advising an all-black wardrobe, and it pissed me off.

I don’t think I’m the only person who makes the mistake of packing things for a trip that I never wear at home. More than once, I’ve packed items that still have their tags because I was never moved to wear them in ordinary life. And you know what? If you don’t wear them at home you will not wear them on a trip. Travel makes you believe you are being reborn, reinvented, popped out of your usual mold like a fresh hot biscuit. Well, yes and no, and mostly no. For this, we should be grateful, because central to the idea of having a coherent identity is the fact that being in a new environment doesn’t reshape you completely.

I spent the morning at a travel health clinic, to see if there were any exotic immunizations that I should get. The nurse was stout and cheery and full of wise maxims. She advised me not to look any Indian dogs in the eye, and to not have sex with strangers, to not get a tattoo, and to be strict with monkeys, because “they’ll yank at your pants and any dangling straps”. I took notes. She gave me shots for typhoid and hepatitis and pills for malaria and seemed so competent that I wanted to ask her what 74 degrees actually feels like and what sort of clothes one would need in that climate, but she had another patient coming in and she shooed me out once my shots were done.

I looked through my wardrobe and nothing seemed to say 74 degrees to me, so I did the awful thing: I start shopping. I became convinced that the item I most needed for the trip was a long shirt dress. I don’t know why. I don’t wear shirt dresses so I can’t source the origin of this idea, but it suddenly felt like the most important thing in the world, the single most essential element for the trip, so I spent several hours digging around online for shirt dresses. Have you any idea of how many of those exist? My god. Millions. I ordered what feels like several thousand.

Things went from bad to worse. I became convinced that absolutely no clothing I own was appropriate for 74 degree Indian weather, and the only solution was to buy new clothes. In a cold sweat, I perused the entire Zara website—heroic, I know—and started ordering anything that seemed even vaguely suitable, which I decided meant lightweight but long-sleeved. I did this while in a disassociative state—one voice scolding me harshly, since buying new clothes for travel is by far the dumbest move ever; the other whimpering that I have nothing to wear on the trip. The shipment comes today; I will let you know.

This anxiety about what to pack is so foolish. If you are summitting Mt. Everest, packing correctly is important. Otherwise, it’s only modestly important. I suspect that if I find myself short a shirt or two I can pick one up on the road—it just so happens that much of the clothing in the world is made in India so I bet I can find some options. Like, probably even in the airport the minute I land. Also, who ever thinks back on a trip and reminisces fondly about how well they packed and how that shirt dress really made the visit to the Taj Mahal terrific? No one. I still hope one of the many shirt dresses I ordered is perfect.

SHOW NOTES

—May I gently remind you that I’m teaching an online course about memoir this Sunday? Here’s the link and I hope you’ll join me: My Five Things

—I’m almost done with Anne Michaels’ exquisite book HELD. Wow, I’ve never read anything of hers before and my socks are knocked off. Highly recommend.

—I’m watching SAY NOTHING, based on Patrick Raden Keefe’s wonderful book of the same name. Another winner.

—I always thought THE GREAT just made overpriced cowgirl clothes, but one of their stores just opened in my neighborhood, and tucked away amid the Wild West stuff are some great finds. I just scored this hand-stamped sweatshirt and joggers and they’re fab: The Great

—I hope you’re all enjoying Wordy Bird! As time goes on, I’ll be putting more material behind the paywall so I can buy more cute sweatshirts from The Great. Also, because I am a professional writer. So if you haven’t signed up for a paid subscription yet, please consider doing so. If you are a student or are not able to pay the full amount, please message me so we can work something out. And if you are already a paid subscriber, please know how much I appreciate it!

xxSusan