Independence Day

Of a sort, I suppose--if independence means not being tied down to a permanent address. The hardest part of the last stages of packing is the reduced space in which to pack. The more you have in boxes and off the walls and out of drawers and stacked on the floors, the working space becomes a test of contortion. And then there's the amusing time-wasters: once a box is set to seal, and you've pulled the flaps tight, the tape is nowhere to be found. Once you find enough space to unroll the bubble wrap, you can't find the box-cutter to cut the wrap, once you've sealed a box, none of the five magic markers can be found to remind you later what you've packed. And then there's the discovery of something that should have gone into another box which is already packed and sealed and always on the bottom of another stack of boxes, which then has to be unearthed, opened, and resealed and restacked. Not to mention the time it takes to stop and spend a half hour to restart a role of tape that has fallen away from the cutter and resealed itself on the roll. These kinds of annoyances keep you from worrying yourself to death about the future though, so perhaps they serve a purpose?

Speaking of annoyances, as I went out the other day to buy (yet more!) tape and bubble wrap, I discovered a crack in my windshield up by the rearview mirror which has been since snaking its way down my car window like a stroke of immensely slow lightning. Getting that repaired delays the start of the second leg of my journey--not to mention it brings another huge expense I can't afford right now. I think it was W.C. Fields who made a comment about "the innate perversity of inanimate objects."

There's at least a bit of good news: I won't have to spend too many nights in the car--at least not as many as I expected as I've been able to find friends along the way who are willing to put me up for a night, give me a meal and a shower. Having these friends come through for me temporarily bandages my tattered self-esteem, and I'm grateful.

Time to go reopen another box and reseal it--if I can find the box a recently discovered instruction booklet belongs in, that is. I wish I weren't out of coffee.

One last thing: doing all these (relatively) mindless tasks over the past few weeks, I came to a realization. I may be too tired to realize that it isn't profound, and without my books I can't check if it's a thought I picked up somewhere else: The will to live is simply a rage at impermanence.

Where's the box-cutter? Onward.