With 9 days, 216 hours, 7 1/2 days of work, 75 hours of work, hopefully only half a dozen more boxes to pack, I find myself quickly propelling towards my departure date. Through the process of uprooting my life here, packing everything I own in industrial grey plastic tubs and every paper box I can nick from work, I have discovered a few things about myself. 

I hate packing. For all the moving I do, one might think I would have packing down to an art; this is simply not true. Let's also consider who my mother is! The Queen of Organization. Somehow none of that rubbed off on me. Instead I flounder in a sea of individual memories, caught up in the rising swell of trinkets from people I love, and thus feel guilty for discarding. Thankfully, at just the right moment, my mother's voice echos in my ears, "When in doubt, throw it away!"

Packing in many ways resembles putting away Christmas decorations. Each ornament encapsulates a memory of a place, time or person, often making the process of putting them away much longer than necessary. Without fail, every year we forget whole swaths of decorations, only to find time sometime around Valentine's Day, "What on Earth are these Christmas tree towels doing in the bathroom?" or "How did we fail to notice the papier mache angel sitting on the windowsill?" Last night I proudly went up to my room, thinking that the entire downstairs was divested of my belongings.  This morning, however, proved me wrong. Somehow I'd missed nearly everything in the kitchen. I have no doubt that I'll be receiving a call from a roommate in July asking if I knew I'd left this or that behind.

So far, one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make surrounds all the books I own, and which pile to put them in. If I bring Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, do I need to bring Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols? I want to reread Anne Rice, so maybe I can put Arabian Nights in storage.  I'm bringing the Egyptian Book of the Dead, but leaving Herodotus' Histories. Ovid's Metamorphoses and a collection of Oscar Wilde's works made the cut, but the Federalist Papers went into the storage box. I anticipate spending a good number of my evenings sitting on the front porch of Lake Lodge reading through the 600 pounds of books I'm bringing. 

I hope to do some serious soul searching while trekking through the last of the truly wild west. (Isn't the alliteration in that sentence beautiful?!) I've been having interesting conversations recently regarding the purpose of life, the reason for humanity.  There are certainly moments when I could believe that the hedonists had a point, but after too many forays into a world strictly designed for pleasure, I find myself drawing back, searching for something higher, less temporal. From there I often find myself wondering if the need to do good in the world, to make a difference is the driving force.  But the truth is that most days, I know that the hedonist in me needs some curbing, that the do-gooder in me needs some prodding, and the spirit in me is wholly confused.  

Now that all my books are securely packed into various boxes, taped down with unforgiving destinations stamped on the lids, I find I must turn elsewhere for inspiration.  And so I turn to art, more specifically the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  Today I've chosen Dante Rossetti. His women exude a far off beauty, never quite meeting your eye.  This portrait exeplifies what I'm looking for, that serenity and beauty, most importantly, the pensive, questioning air. 


Wandering through stacks of boxes,


Jeny.