People are calling and coming over and spending a lot of time with us as we prepare to leave. And…this is also a problem. Both of us love having the visitors, and we chat a lot, and the time spent with friends is very, every enjoyable…but when are we supposed to get our packing done?

I am still making lists of things to be packed rather than packing.

I have never gone away from home for as long a period as I am planning for now….so what I pack is rather crucial. There is some small stuff that is very essential to one’s comfort and that one just cannot get in the destination…so it had better not get left behind. (Eg I want to pack a lot of Hall’s mints because they are SO soothing for a sore throat, and I know of no equally good substitue in the US, which,anyway, would be pretty expensive! And medications MUST be bought here and taken…)

Packing just 15 kg in total is a kind of zen exercise; it shows me just how much I can actually live without. But still, I cannot jettison the rest. Just because I am packing only 2 silk sarees, doesn’t mean I can throw out the others!

But what to include in that 15 kg (how I long for the days when we used to travel Business Class…just three or four years ago, we had a 70 kg allowance on Business class, can you imagine that?) is another tortorous exercise. I like having a lot of things around me, alas…I like having the option of four pairs of footwear to choose from, for example…and I am forced not to have that luxury. If I leave something out, I cannot get it, and that fact looms large in my packing-planning.

I don’t want to either under- or over-pack, and it’s a tightrope to walk!

And while I pack, I look at my accumulate possessions.

Possessions…I think they tie one down, even as they give pleasure. But I am a pack rat and cannot throw anything away, and I am also not a cupboard-cleaner and organizer. So…both useful stuff, AND junk, accumulates….I have, for some time, been oppressed by the clutter that has piled up, but lack the will to jettison it all. (And I am worried that having got rid of it, I will want it again!)

It’s easier to do regular housekeeping from the outset; when stuff has piled up, the pile is so daunting that one puts off the pruning.

I want to get all my packing done, and do one last stint of birding, and soak in the beauty of Valley School, on Saturday morning…let’s see if that works out.

I really do NOT like going away for more than four weeks at a time, I realize! I think this is the first time in my life (after I went to my parents’ place to have my baby) that I have left home for such a long period.

All prospective burglars who are reading this, do come and clean out my home for me; it will save me the trouble and agonized decision making of “what to keep? what to throw out?”…