Thoughts on Packing and Traveling Home

The summer before I turned 15, I went on a mission trip to Bolivia... by way of Europe. A friend had invited me to go with her, and as she lived in the Netherlands, it made perfect sense for me to travel to the Eastern Hemisphere before traveling to the Southern Hemisphere. Well, "perfect sense" maybe not, but that is what I did.

As you might imagine, packing for a trip involving two entirely different continents can be a challenge. What made the challenge more unusual, however, is that the mission agency we were to travel with provided their own duffel bags for our use. As my departure date approached, I became more and more anxious that I had not yet seen the bag I was required to use. I understood that mailing a bag from Europe to California was somewhat cost prohibitive, but surely, it would be waiting for me at my hosts' house when I arrived.

It wasn't.

There had been some miscommunication. My friend had her bag, but mine was still on its way. Every day I eagerly watched for the delivery. "Dutch post is very quick," I was assured. "There is still time for it to get here."

There had been plenty of time for it to arrive, provided the bag had ever been put into the mail for me. But it hadn't and so the night before our flight, I packed as best I could into a suitcase and hoped I would be able to carry it suitably while everyone else hauled their duffle bags.

In all the time I spent in Holland, I never saw a traffic jam of anything larger than bicycles returning home at rush hour. But as any good Murphy's lawyer knows, that day there was horridly slow traffic all the way to the international airport.

We were so late. I worried about missing our plane, and sighed with huge relief when we walked through the doors to the terminal and saw everyone else milling around, waiting for us.

There was something else waiting for us. Or me, rather. The duffel bag.

And so in the busy international wing of Schiphol airport, as we moved through the line to check in our bags, I repacked.

To say I was stressed at this point is an understatement. Speed packing has never been my thing. Neither have large audiences. Nor having my private belongings exposed to public viewing.

And then someone asked the question, "Just think what kind of life God is preparing you for in this experience!"

I conjured up this elaborate scenario of multitudes of last minute packing jobs as I traveled from one bustling airport to another. The inevitable future lifestyle requiring such last minute flexibility and spacial reckoning only served to make the experience seem even more dramatic. Years later it occurred to me that instead of asking "What does God have in store for me that this is my practice?" I should have thought "Look at all of the practice I have had leading up to this crazy experience!" I probably would have been less stressed.

I remembered this all recently in the midst of washing dishes. A soapy cereal bowl slipped from my hands and bounced across the counter onto the floor, shattering in many tiny pieces. Once I had picked up the largest glass shards, I went to pull out the vacuum from its place, nestled between our dining table, the toy box, and the violin.

That's when it hit me. Last minute flexibility and spacial reckoning? That is my life. I don't do much packing for international travel these days, but living in a small space seems like one long stretch of packing and repacking to try and meet life's ever-changing demands. In my more frustrated moments I long for the magic solution that will finally, finally allow for a place for everything and everything in its place. But then it is for me to remember that my 473 square foot studio condo is just the duffle bag I'm using on this leg of the journey.

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