Cross Country Christmas

Packing is funny.
Essentially, as with most endeavors, you’re trying to strike a balance.

Pack too much and you bog yourself down.
Hell, most of us are bogged down at even at home.
Have you seen any of those hoarding shows?
(I assume there’s more than one.)
People — WE   HAVE   TOO   MUCH   STUFF.
You don’t need every shiny plastic thing you see on TV.
Clutter is visual and energetic noise.
Feel and deal with the internal emptiness that no amount of stuff
(or comfort food, or drugs, or spectator sports, or pornography) will fill.
Easier said than done.  I know.

Pack too little and you’ll end up wherever wishing you had X.
(Most Americans will never experience this.
Which part?  Both.)

It is a delicate balance, to be sure,
one that I’ve yet to achieve, however,
here are a few words of advice I feel qualified to impart:

Start laying out your stuff weeks before the trip.
Make color-coded lists.
Err on the side of taking less.
Besides, 99% of domestic destinations will have
all the same Targets and what have you
where you can buy whatever you forgot
or whatever you realize you should’ve brought.
As with anything else, your first attempts will be far from perfect.
Practice.
Take shorter trips initially; assess your system and take notes.
Don’t get a dog or have kids
before you’ve more-or-less mastered packing.
If you’ve already got a dog or have had kids, give them away
(joke—mostly).
Realize that packing too much stuff usually stems from
some inner reluctance to depart that you aren’t acknowledging.
All of this is very general, I know.
Specific tips to come in a future post.
Mostly, cultivate efficient and habitual organization at home.
If you aren’t organized at home,
packing for the road will prove difficult and frustrating.

Packing is funny.
And hopefully, with practice over time,
it becomes an efficient process requiring less and less effort.

Writing is funny.

Most human activities have a corollary in the animal kingdom:
Mating eating sleeping, check.
Some animals build shelters, so building.
Birds sing & wolves howl, so we’ll say music.
I think I saw something on a nature show once
where primates were making some kind of art with handprints.
And dance–don’t cranes or honeybees do some kind of mating dance?

But writing, storytelling, theatrical mimesis;
these are unique to human beings.
Why?  Because we reflect, of course.
We feel, as do animals; we’ve all seen dogs happy and dogs sad.
But they don’t reflect on those feelings a day later.
The eyes and nose are on the fronts of faces, and the ears on the side,
but nothing is on the back of any creature’s head,
suggesting that life is to be lived forward.
So why do we feel the need to figuratively look backward?
We want to re-live and share triumph;
we struggle with the lingering sadness
that remains surrounding tragedy.
And then some people even write about it.
You may know some of them.
They are the ones
that never seem quite at home or satisfied in this world,
the ones that are always a bit of an enigma at best
and a pain in the ass at worst.
Whether or not they actually write is secondary;
I’m talking temperament here.
That’s another thing human beings do—-
we actively decide to repress and hide natural instincts and urges.
If an Elk felt compelled to write, he would write!
He wouldn’t struggle with “Do I have a right to write?”  He’d just do it.
He might even have a blog:
THE ANTLER RANT: Rutting and Writing for Elk of a Certain Ilk

I propose, then, that writing,
  the act of crystalizing and preserving reflection,
is the most human of endeavors.
(Yeah, I guess this is now self-aggrandizement,
since, if you can’t tell already,
I’m a writer who’s trying to not suppress the urge to write,
and trying to do a decent job of it,
entertaining & edifying along the way.)
Writing is the act of trying to organize
the maelstrom of thought and emotion that storms through us;
to make it visible, tangible, manageable.
To wrest away from our head heart & soul
some of the control they somehow exert over themselves.
To be the master of one’s self, to not be at the mercy of the tides.
A compulsion perhaps, but hopefully
a balm that soothes,
a fire that lights,
a drink that slakes thirst,
a glue that binds us together in communion
across time, space, and culture.

Writing is funny.
And if you’ve got a work ethic and a brain & soul, it is, hopefully, good.

I am a musician, writer, and photography enthusiast
currently living in Southern California.
I’ve got a number of gigs on the east coast this December
and instead of flying I’ve decided to take a road trip.
I’ve always enjoyed driving.
I’ve always loved the holiday season.
This year I’m combining all these things.
Please join me on my Cross Country Christmas.