Making a List

For months now, we've been thinking about what to bring on our big trip. I feel like every item in our packs has been passionately debated: the one person tent! The necessity of a warm hat! The difference between a scarf and a sarong! The Tarp: to bring or not to bring?! J and I have gotten into some heated arguments over this silly crap, mostly because it's a tricky trip to pack for. Our first stop is Anchorage, Alaska, where the current temperature is 56 degrees and drops even lower at night. Further down the line, however, we'll be trekking across India during monsoon season. Since we'll be camping in AK, we're bringing gear of that variety (J's 1 person tent, sleeping bags, teeny stove, mittens, etc) with the intention of mailing it all back east when we don't need it any more. 

I sat with J while he loaded his pack up last week, a day or two before he left with his fam. I had to hold my tongue a bit, I guess because we're differently minded when it comes to organization and process. I couldn't believe the haphazard way he had his pack laid out, as if it was not a limited collection of earthly possessions he'd be carrying with him for months, but rather the contents of the junk drawer of some loony anthropologist, shaken up and emptied out onto his bed. Is there a method to his madness? His pack weighs 48 pounds and contains things like "two cigars", "armed robbery mask" and two sharp knives, one smooth and one serrated (see master list). Secret is, I think he knows exactly what he's doing!

I'm packing too, but in my own anal retentive, obsessive kind of way, with labels and plastic baggies and pills for every ailment imaginable. I've been collecting everything over the course of the past month or so, and now it's all neatly folded and laid out, ready to be packed away into my green hiking backpack - light stuff on the bottom, heavy stuff on top. I thought of every thing: mini flash light, camera charger, USB, dental floss, multivitamins, glue sticks. I relish the day when J has a sniffly nose and I can reach into my pack and hand him a sudafed and a bottle of nasal spray. "See?? See how organized I am???" I'm sure he's looking forward to that moment when we're both really in the mood for a cigar. 

9:30 AM

New York City

J's pack

my pack