Pack Rat

I cleaned out my room.

It's not empty, no. I'm not that far yet in the moving out process. I have simply discovered that a beautiful procrastination technique is cleaning and organizing, because then there is at least something to show for the time you have, apparently, wasted.

Now, when I sit bent over my desk plastered with notes and handouts and notebooks, I watch people plodding over to their parents' cars, drooping under backpacks, pillows, duvets, boxes and plastic bags stuffed to bursting. Just yesterday, Thursday, I had to force myself to comprehend the idea of two weeks. Then it'll be me hauling whatever I can squeeze into one suitcase, a backpack, a pillow and a messenger bag. I have two weeks left in Edinburgh. I think, no! There's so much more to do! I haven't read the books I meant to finish, or explored the museums I haven't even seen the reception desks of; I haven't seen some of my friends since before spring break!

Well, after exams are over (TOMORROW I WILL BE DONE!) I hope my evenings are going to be spent attending all of those "birthday/end of exams" parties that have sprung up on facebook. I do hope that the rain clears up a bit. Although it's reassuring to know that the sun isn't shining while you're rereading far too many powerpoint slides, it's not fun to walk to the gym in the rain. It is also not fun to go to an exam in the rain, and realize, when it's time to leave, that your coat and bag, crumpled by a back wall in the exam hall, are just as wet as when you came in. But I am proud of you, clouds of Edinburgh, for actually raining, not misting or producing dampness and humidity, but actually raining.

Anyways, I'm sorry you've had to endure that bit of complaining. It's not a thrilling post, I am well aware. It's just that, today, I found myself picking through piles of receipts, ticket stubs, programs, letters, lists, pamphlets, flyers, etc., and stuffing at least fifty or eighty plastic bags into a larger plastic bag. Now, I know the first observation is one of a typical pack rat, which I am. I love saving those little papers that, when I find them days, months, or years later, I smile at and lay in a box safe for keeping. Of course, sometimes I find things that have lost their meaning, and those fly straight into the garbage, or, if I remember, into the paper recycling.

But back to the bags. They're not for sentimental value. No, I do not smile when I come across an old, torn Tesco bag. I save them to put my climbing gear in, or to replace the garbage bag in my mini wastebasket. Bags have been folded, stacked and stuffed into corners of the houses I have known.

Back home, we have a stack of brown bags, and a separate doorknob for those nifty, cloth, reusable shopping bags. Our coat rack in the kitchen plays host to tote bags, lunch boxes and backpacks, and a jacket or two may reside there. But really, the jackets belong on the vestibule coat rack. The plastic bags used to gather in our beach bag, but now have been introduced to a giant trash bag of their own, so they aren't evicted each time we need to pack up towels, sunscreen and sunglasses. Before long, I started a plastic bag collection of my own, stuffing a wicker basket on my closet shelf full, until I got fed up, and began folding them.

My grandparents prided themselves on their crisply folded translucent plastic bags destined to protect cheese from the fridge and transport sandwiches from kitchen to picnic.

I remember my horror when, I'm not sure where anymore, I saw someone let their possibly practical plastic bags go to waste away in the trash can. Well, I shall never let that happen. I cleared out the bags under my bed, and could not bear to bring them to the green can in the pantry marked "All other waste". They wouldn't even get their own bag! They now sit, happily scrunched together in a clear plastic bag under my desk, waiting to be useful.

P.S. I wrote this on Friday, the day before my last exam for first year. Now, I can say that I am finished. Oh- and a new, hot pink Superdrug (toiletries shop) bag has been added to my collection.

A Post Long Overdue: Up, Up, and away!

I would like to thank whoever it was that invented the train. I cannot imagine a better way to travel through Scotland. The first few hours out of Glasgow passed by beautifully, but now, it's absolutely magnificent. I almost feel as if I should shove my notebook back into my backpack to stare at the landscape that has swallowed us up.

The sun gleams every now and then from behind the misty clouds that hover just above the horizon, almost brushing the peaks powdered with snow. The hills glide down, with tufts of brown grass peeking out. Snow begins to fall, but I'm safe behind glass and steel, under my new hat and my thick-knit sweater. Suddenly, the song "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" trumpets out of my headphones. I smile.

At one of the last stops before Fort William, when a station consists of small wooden buildings huddled together, we are told to step out to use the bathroom. The conductor assures us, her words curling under her Scottish brogue and her smile disrupted by missing teeth, that the train will not leave without us. I think of times when trains waited an extra moment for a gasping traveler to hurdle in through the doors. We stumble out of our seats, backpack straps tripping us up, and as soon as we emerge, I stick my tongue out to welcome the snow. My first snow in Scotland. My friends laugh and wish for their cameras and I stand admiring the stillness, the quiet that comes with falling snow.
The train does wait.

 Lochs stretch alongside the mountains, their surfaces rippling and opaque, while the streams that sink below the tufted hills shimmer for a few moments before sinking away again. And those mountains rising above are cracked and creased with creeks and ruts running down with bare trunks and branches  folded into them. Firs and birches and conifers flash past, a nuisance when we try to capture the view. And the forests look so soft, with trees grown so close together their tops repeat jagged, green patterns.

After four or five hours, we step off the train and into Fort William. First, we'll get groceries and then we'll head off to the Ben Nevis Inn, at least a mile out of town. But that will all come later.

Thank you, Mr. Sendak

When I open my bedroom door at home, books confront me. A bookcase stretching upwards to the ceiling creates a square halo of spines. The shelf at about shoulder height houses a small pile of miniature books: The Nutshell Library. They are fawn brown with light hardcovers wrapped in fabric that open to reveal characters that take control of their pages and the other characters on them.

I haven't posted here in a while, and I can excuse myself by muttering about exams and essays and Easter holidays, but today I'd like to thank Mr. Maurice Sendak. As I sit here writing, and listening to the Tammy Grimes narrated versions of his stories, Sendak's drawings burst open in my mind. I can see the tiger in One Was Johnny and the trees that transformed Max's bedroom.
There are many children's books, but not all of the stories, not all of the authors, have the power to light up our imaginations. Maurice Sendak always did. Stories that grab our minds and hearts as children are beautiful gifts; because when you return to your childhood home or a box of books at the back of a closet somewhere, it's like finding your supper still warm on the table, when you have been gone so long. Those memories are still crisp and colorful, waiting on the page to grab you once more.