CHICAGO — Today was the day I have been spending the last six months preparing for. Its arrival is almost anticlimactic. Or maybe it’s because I’m suffering from sleep deprivation.

Yesterday, we had to had to get up at 3:30 am to meet Darcy at the airport. Her flight to Paris via Houston left at 6 am. I didn’t bother going to sleep; I just stayed up getting myself ready for my flight out.

She will be working for a year as an au pair in Angouleme, near Bordeaux. After some quick shopping in the airport gift shop for suitable gifts for her French family, she said her goodbyes to us. There were some tears, but I suspect they were mostly because she was leaving her boyfriend behind. (No offense taken, cherie!)

I miss those halcyon days of accompanying your loved ones to the gate and waiting with them until they boarded. It was more civilized than these hasty goodbyes on the opposite side of the security checkpoints. Somehow (and it might just be me) saying goodbye at the gates is more personal than in the middle of the main concourse, even in Louisville’s small airport. It was busy Tuesday there (for Louisville), so there were lots of people coming and going.

Not so today, when I left. The Louisville airport was practically like a ghost town by comparison. Check-in went smoothly (e-tickets are next best thing to direct deposit), and surprisingly, so did the security check. Everybody was pretty laid back, despite those annoying public address announcements of “security levels are high” (which they seem to be all the time, for no apparent reasons). But then again, it’s Louisville. We’re all laid back here.

I am traveling with three bags: one checked bag, a carry-on and a small camera bag for my Nikon FM and accessories. While United allows two checked bags on international flights free of charge, the Chinese train system allows only one. Extra bags are assessed a fee. Originally, I figured I would take two checked bags, my big duffle-like thing on wheels and a garment bag, and pay the extra fees. But then I decided that carrying four bags was not all that appealing, despite the possibility of taking more stuff. More bags means more weight, more effort and more things to worry about juggling and/or losing. So, I settled on taking one checked bag, figuring I could compact my stuff down into the big wheeled duffle.

Well, it took four tries to get it right. Following the guidance of the packing expert at www.onebag.com, I learned how to pack my clothes into bundles, instead of just folding them individually, to minimize wrinkles and creases. (Bundling means you place your shirts and pants, for example, in a plus-sign pattern, with a small bundle (toiletry case, first aid kit) in the middle. Then you fold the legs and sleeves over the central bundle to make a larger bundle. Pretty cool. You end up with a flat, rectangular kit that is easy to pick up and insert into your bag. I made two, to stack on top of each other.

United allows 23 kg (50 lbs) for each international passenger’s checked bag, but the Chinese rail system allows only 20 kg (44 lbs). Getting that one bag down below 20 kg was a trick in itself. I wanted to bring books, both to read and to use in class, important financial papers, and of course clothes. Including all the books I wanted to take, my camera tripod, shoes, toiletry kit, and clothes pushed the load up over 25 kilos. So I had to jettison the tripod, a few not-so-important-I-won’t-die-without-them books, and scale down my selection of clothing. After four trials, I managed to get the duffle down to 19.5 kilos (43 lbs).

Here’s what’s in it, in case you care.

The books include the Oxford American Dictionary, an English grammar book I found a few days ago at Carmichael’s, The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), A Christmas Carol (Dickens), The Call of the Wild (London), short stories by O. Henry, Cryptonomicon (Stephenson — I love his similes and metaphors), and a guide to Chinese customs and manners. I may have also packed, but now have forgotten whether I set them aside, Como agua para chocolate (Esquivel), Cuentos de Eva Luna (Allende) and a Spanish-English dictionary. (Yes, I know, reading Spanish movels in China … what am I thinking?) All other my other selections were available on-line, so I decided the physical specimens could stay in Kentucky.

Clothing: navy blue blazer, two pairs of khakis, three dressy shirts, three polo and/or T-shirts, several neckties, one belt, swimsuit, shorts, lots of socks and underwear, fleece jacket, nylon windbreaker, down jacket (compressed in one of those spacebag thingies), pair dressy shoes, a hand towel, facecloth and small bath towel. Minimal, but clothing in China is inexpensive, so I can buy anything else there.

Miscellaneous: a Centre College acrylic plastic coffee mug, a St. Francis High School plastic cup, two Swiss-Army knives (one a penknife), U.S. Army exercise book and rubber tubing (courtesy of my eldest son), toiletry case, two rolls of toilet paper (Chinese loos do not usually have it), a wall calendar, some financial records, a couple of USA maps and a few assorted computer-related oddments I don’t need straight away.

My carry-on doubles as my laptop bag. Besides the laptop and its power supply, the bag also contains an external USB-powered hard drive with a crap load of music on it, a digital camera, a USB cardreader, a webcam, all my China-related employment and visa documentation, eight rolls of color film (bought on sale at Meijer), TSA-approved toiletries in a TSA-approved ziploc bag, a notepad (for those times when the laptop has no power available), an emergency set of clothes (less the pants), The Rough Guide to China, The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), and a few other miscellaneous items.

The camera bag has a Nikon FM body, a 35-80-mm zoom lens, a 200-mm telephoto, a motor drive and a speedlight. (The replacements for what got sucked out of the back of my car two months ago.)

As I sat in the plane at the Louisville airport awaiting our departure, I had a fleeting sense that I was doing a potentially stupid thing. After all, I am leaving a comfortable job, which to be fair was getting a little old after 23 years, a support system consisting of a bucketload of friends and family members, and the security of having lived in the same place for half my life. Instead, I am flying clear across the world to do something I have never done before (teach English as a second language to more than six people at a time), in a place where I know exactly one person fairly well and a few others only electronically, to live there for a year, maybe two. Holy shit! What have I done?

The feeling passed, fortunately, or I’d be a basket case right now, instead of calmly sitting on the floor at gate C22 at the O’Hare Airport typing this into my laptop. I set this whole process in motion a year and half ago when I inquired about teaching English at Jishou University, knowing that the following year would be my last at St. Francis High School. Everything that has happened since has fallen into place so effortlessly, that it seems as if this major life change is the right thing to do. (The Chinese believe 8 is a lucky number; August is the eight month of 2008. So there.) It is a bit scary, I will admit, but one cannot grow without change and challenge. It sure beats being stale.

August 27th, 2008 | Tags: China, leaving, louisville, packing | Category: China | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL