Why Can’t You Pack a Bag?

I had my worst-ever packing experience in the late nineties, when I was a teen-ager. My mother and I were returning from a trip to Ireland. Before leaving home, we’d overpacked extravagantly, imagining a wide range of non-rainy weather conditions; I’d also, for some reason, decided that I needed to bring not just my Discman but a whole booklet of CDs. We were already at capacity when, the day before our return flight, my mom went to the local butcher shop and bought two dozen sausages, a few rashers of bacon, and several cans of stew. Her idea was to wrap everything in plastic bags and hide them inside our giant duffel of laundry. The dogs and the customs agents at Dulles Airport were not deceived. As we knelt on the terminal linoleum, surrounded by sausages and stuffing our clothes back into our bags, I felt a genuine sense of public shame, as though I were in a stockade.

It’s obvious why packing is hard: it involves a series of mounting yet tedious questions. What, how many, which one, in what? What if, what about, how will I, what then? You can respond by trying to pack everything, accepting in advance the consequences in weight and disorganization. Or you can attempt to work out answers in detail, through a rational thought process that often brings you up against the limits of what’s knowable. It’s true, for example, that it rains a lot in Ireland in October—but, during that month last year, there were actually a few days when it was sunny and in the seventies. So perhaps a pair of shorts is sensible? And a sun hat? And maybe it’s impossible, ultimately, to predict the future, and so some sandals might make sense, too?

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