"I put your red sweater under your flannel shirt. The red one is warmer than the gray one so wear it when the temperature gets low. Inside the black plastic bag is some medicine. These are for cold and flu. Take them when you don't feel well. If you start coughing, take those green capsules plus one of these yellow antibiotics. Remember, just one. They are really strong. Don't take those white tablets during the day because they make you feel drowsy. But if you . . . " “Mom, I know, I know," I said impatiently. It was August 2000, a few days before I left home for college. Mom tried to squeeze everything that I might need into the boxes she took from Safeway. I watched her putting things in, taking them out, and then putting them back again to make sure that things stacked on one another as perfectly as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Finally she was convinced that no one could squeeze even one more molecule into any of the boxes, and she looked satisfied. My things stuck out of the top like the stomach of a three-hundred pound beer drinker. The picture of things jumping out like Jack in the box when I opened the boxes ran through my mind quickly like a five-second cartoon. "I am not going to take those with me," I thought. In my mind, I was thinking about how those people in the PBS travel programs always fascinated me. I often imagined myself traveling in different countries with a single backpack hanging on my back that showed so much carefree leisure and mature independence. I could sleep in a park or in a subway station because a true traveler could feel at home anywhere. The idea of carrying some awkward luggage simply did not appeal ...
