Trying to travel light

Fullness to such a burden is / That go on pilgrimage ...

After I wrote that last post it occurred to me to smile at it. If you are going on a pilgrimage and you can take one thing in your suitcase, what should it be? Shouldn't it be something like loving kindness?

At the same time I'm packing for my trip, I'm also unpacking a remarkable amount of stuff from the closet of my studio apartment. While I'm away, the landlord is going to do some remodeling for me, and I anticipate returning from the trip to some new luxuries: sliding doors on the closet and ... a real bathtub! I had requested only that they re-tile the shower floor, so I was quite delighted when they offered to do a lot more for me.

To accomplish this, of course, everything has to come out of those parts of the apartment, and I'm going through all kinds of things, discarding some of it, and daylighting some of it (Jim Gilman is about to get a stack of New Zealand choral octavos I'd forgotten I had). I found a 1978 letter from my cousin Sue, telling me all about the guy she was about to marry: "I couldn't ask for a better husband." That one, I'll keep.