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The gypsy and his bandanna

Packing boxes are the staple of my life. Longer than I care to remember, my work meant travelling from country…

The gypsy and his bandanna

(PHOTO: SNS)

Packing boxes are the staple of my life. Longer than I care to remember, my work meant travelling from country to country, living in a place for a while, developing a few friends, and then moving again.
All my worldly belongings went in cardboard boxes, neatly sealed and labelled at one end and impatiently opened and rearranged at the other. Those khaki boxes with silver duct tapes all over them seemed to represent my life, uprooted from one land and replanted in another.
The first couple of times I took great pains to list all my things, categorize them by type and use, and, once the boxes arrived at destination, to open them promptly and place them quickly in appropriate rooms.
Then I grew tired of the routine and took my time opening and arranging the contents. Sometimes a box would not be opened for months; sometimes it would remain unopened and was later simply forwarded to the next country I went to.
Every time I moved, I told myself I would simplify my life and not port so much stuff from one stint to another. After all, I was the 21st century nomad who could get most of the things I needed in the place I went or order online. Yet my boxes grew in number and size, and each successive move seemed burdened with the need to move a larger consignment.
People say wistfully, “If I were to live my life all over again…” As I went to a new country I abandoned my home and neighbourhood, colleagues and friends, familiar storekeepers, doctors and plumbers, and look for new people and places to fill my life.
I was literally living life all over again, more than once, and had the singular opportunity to change the style, pace or purpose of my life. As with my boxes, I vowed to change something, and did perhaps change a few things. But those were the inconsequential ones, and soon I found myself doing the same things in the same way and living essentially the same life – another time.
My friend Carson, who works in international sales and has an itinerant life, tells me of the “huge caravan” he has lug to every country he visits. He laughs at his attachment to trivial things he has picked up along the way that he can’t bring himself to shed. On the other hand, Pamela, a reporter, writing of wars and famines in far-off places, travels happily with a small bag and seems never to lack the right outfit for a cocktail party, any more than she lacks the right word for a searing report.
I look at their examples and recognize that I, like many others, have created my own life, regardless of circumstances, by what I have done and shrunk from doing. Maybe I have backed up from changing anything critical and let my life flow on, devoid of drama but also bereft of design.
The gypsy who would never stay put just wouldn’t change his soiled bandanna.

(The writer is a Washington-based international development advisor and had worked with the World Bank. He can be reached at mnandy@gmail.com)

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