Shedding

I threw my old jeans and purple sweater into a bag and went down to the used clothing bin I'd seen outside the El Corte Ingles department store, in front of the Citibank. 


I tossed in the bag. That had been my plan, to wear old clothes on the plane to escape the New York winter, then to ditch them in Malaga, Spain.


For a moment, I hesitated. My plan had also been to throw out my winter coat there too. I'd selected carefully, choosing a thin coat I hadn't worn in years. And it struck me that I'd bought this coat from Mango in Barcelona in November of 2004, when the nights got chillier than I'd expected while living there for a few months. From Spain and back to Spain. I'd had to buy an XL size, which had struck me as absurd. In 2004, I was thinner than I'd been since I was 17 years old, due to eating like a Spaniard and living on a sixth-floor walk-up in Barcelona. But Spain has inconsistent sizing.

Travel is the Easy Part

All this is going to fit in my backpack?

The last few days were a whirlwind of no sleep, frantic day job working, and panicked packing. In the end, the kitchen faucet broke and I had a nice visit with the plumber (who replaced it), I contributed $42 to Jersey City by spacing out on the alternate-side parking times, and I threw everything into my car which I parked in my garage. I called a taxi to take me to Newark Airport and carried way, way too much with me.

A night on a partially empty plane (empty seat beside me!), a transfer in Zurich, and a scramble to try to find the Ibis since I hadn't had time to look anything up left me showered and ready to go hunt for a meningitis vaccine in Malaga.

And I have way, way too much stuff with me.