Hey
A Fresh Start
Forget about counting sheep to fall asleep, I was counting cows. I figure there were at least 3 of them out there, in the dark Delhi streets, moo-ing the night away as I tossed and turned, frustrated that each passing second took away from the 2-1/2 hours I had before the alarm would beep to life. Why couldn't they just silently chew their cud at this time of the morning? You may not realize how loud a cow's moo is -- thankfully, we in the developed world have separated our lives from those of livestock.
Earlier in the day, we bought plane tickets at a travel agency in the Pahar Ganj area of Delhi, India's backpacker grotto -- similar to Thailand's Koh San Road -- where, in the travel circuit, there seems to be a license for bad haircuts and clothing one's self like a pauper or post-apocalyptic Burning Man refugee.
Oddly, almost every employee in the travel agency was a woman and perhaps in an attempt to make up for the inefficiency found all over the rest of India, where all employees are men, our travel agent erred on the side of caution when giving us instructions for our 7:50 a.m. flight. We were to be at the airport 3 hours in advance, meaning we had to leave for the airport 4 hours prior, even at that ungodly hour of the morning. A car was to pick us up at 3:45 a.m. sharp.
As I laid there in bed, having given up on the prospect of falling asleep for all the noise... the power had gone out and a few generators kicked on... I thought about how when I 'woke' I'd be leaving India -- moving onto a new place, a fresh start. It would be a great time, I thought, to break bad habits; the perfect time to 'start over' with things that needed 'starting over'. Moving on from India felt a bit like a mini-New Year, a time for resolutions.
I could only really come up with one thing, though; it was something that had been bothering me for several weeks. I decided that my resolution would be to discontinue the habit I'd developed of wearing the same clothes for several days before washing them. The longest I've gone in the same clothes is three days, and it's not that I always wear the same thing for three days -- sometimes it's two, and they are not always consecutive days, but usually, they are. And I just want to add that I do have a powerful deodorant and I do change my underwear every day. Unlike the shirts I put on when I want to wear something 'new', my underwear are always clean -- except for once or twice, but I had no choice. The laundry wasn't back from the dobhi wallah yet.
It's not that I'm developing my own, secret recipe for perfume or cologne (watch out Calvin Klein)... and it's not that I lack interest in variety... And while my options are limited to 2 pairs of pants and 4 shirts, there is still room to 'mix it up' -- well, for at least 4 days, 8 if I wore each shirt with one pair of pants and then wore each shirt again with the other pair. But that takes a lot of planning, and it's enough to plan my daily comings, goings, and expenditures. It's just easier to put the things on that I left on the floor the night before. Of course, a quick smell-check is done before I leave the hotel -- but in India, I would have to have some kind of odorous disease to make the smell of a-few-days-old clothes stand out.
There's the timing of getting laundry back that interferes with that whole 8-days-of-outfits strategy I mentioned earlier -- if you hand your dirty stuff over in the afternoon, you won't get it back for 24 hours. That means that you will be wearing the same thing for 2 days back to back as that will be all that's left in your possession. Then, you figure, if you're going to be on the road, heading to a new place in the day or two after getting your laundry back, it would be silly to soil the fresh, clean clothes that were just returned to you. It's easier to pack a bunch of clean clothes together in your pack than having separate groups for clean and dirty -- and you certainly don't want to mix the clean and dirty together. So you see, it's really quite easy to end up wearing the same thing for days on end, like it or not.
Aside from all of the algebra required to figure out how to work with a limited number of clothes, preventing repetitious outfits and the wearing of things for days on end, there is another issue... a matter of function.
I consider each article of my clothing as a mechanic considers his tools. Each piece has a job to do and its own special feature that makes it work better for certain situations over others. For example, one of my shirts has an inside pocket that's accessible from the outside, a zippered pocket on the side, UV protection of SPF 30, air vents, and a collar that I can unfold to protect the back of my neck from the sun. It's the Swiss Army knife of button downs. I like to wear this shirt when we're out for the day visiting a palace, or ruins, or just exploring a town. My cash is nicely hidden and easily accessible via the inside pocket, and the zippered side pocket is perfect for my camera lens. The other shirts I have -- the plain ones, without bells and whistles or any pockets, require that I have a backpack and/or pants with pockets to carry my things. Incidentally, I made the mistake of bringing one pair of pants without pockets -- it's hell when I'm left with nothing to wear but the pocketless pair of pants and a pocketless shirt.
You can see that getting dressed is not as straightforward as one would think. Before leaving home to travel, I figured that getting dressed while on the road, with the minimal amount of clothing I would have, would be simple... a no-brainer. And in some ways it has been simple -- it's when I'm confronted with an entire closet full of clothes at home that I freeze up and ironically, end up wearing the same type of outfits on a daily basis. All of you who know me probably envision me in jeans and a black t-shirt when you think of me... Let me add here that while at home I may wear the same type of clothing, at least the clothes are clean.
So here I am, and having worked through some 'issues' through writing this piece, I've discovered that maybe my resolution to stop wearing the same thing for days on end is futile because, to a large extent, with the schedules of traveling and laundry and all... sometimes it's beyond my control. And, equally important, my clothes are more than a mere fashion statement... my clothes are more than a personal expression of my style -- my clothes are not apparel. My clothes are tools.
Earlier in the day, we bought plane tickets at a travel agency in the Pahar Ganj area of Delhi, India's backpacker grotto -- similar to Thailand's Koh San Road -- where, in the travel circuit, there seems to be a license for bad haircuts and clothing one's self like a pauper or post-apocalyptic Burning Man refugee.
Oddly, almost every employee in the travel agency was a woman and perhaps in an attempt to make up for the inefficiency found all over the rest of India, where all employees are men, our travel agent erred on the side of caution when giving us instructions for our 7:50 a.m. flight. We were to be at the airport 3 hours in advance, meaning we had to leave for the airport 4 hours prior, even at that ungodly hour of the morning. A car was to pick us up at 3:45 a.m. sharp.
As I laid there in bed, having given up on the prospect of falling asleep for all the noise... the power had gone out and a few generators kicked on... I thought about how when I 'woke' I'd be leaving India -- moving onto a new place, a fresh start. It would be a great time, I thought, to break bad habits; the perfect time to 'start over' with things that needed 'starting over'. Moving on from India felt a bit like a mini-New Year, a time for resolutions.
I could only really come up with one thing, though; it was something that had been bothering me for several weeks. I decided that my resolution would be to discontinue the habit I'd developed of wearing the same clothes for several days before washing them. The longest I've gone in the same clothes is three days, and it's not that I always wear the same thing for three days -- sometimes it's two, and they are not always consecutive days, but usually, they are. And I just want to add that I do have a powerful deodorant and I do change my underwear every day. Unlike the shirts I put on when I want to wear something 'new', my underwear are always clean -- except for once or twice, but I had no choice. The laundry wasn't back from the dobhi wallah yet.
It's not that I'm developing my own, secret recipe for perfume or cologne (watch out Calvin Klein)... and it's not that I lack interest in variety... And while my options are limited to 2 pairs of pants and 4 shirts, there is still room to 'mix it up' -- well, for at least 4 days, 8 if I wore each shirt with one pair of pants and then wore each shirt again with the other pair. But that takes a lot of planning, and it's enough to plan my daily comings, goings, and expenditures. It's just easier to put the things on that I left on the floor the night before. Of course, a quick smell-check is done before I leave the hotel -- but in India, I would have to have some kind of odorous disease to make the smell of a-few-days-old clothes stand out.
There's the timing of getting laundry back that interferes with that whole 8-days-of-outfits strategy I mentioned earlier -- if you hand your dirty stuff over in the afternoon, you won't get it back for 24 hours. That means that you will be wearing the same thing for 2 days back to back as that will be all that's left in your possession. Then, you figure, if you're going to be on the road, heading to a new place in the day or two after getting your laundry back, it would be silly to soil the fresh, clean clothes that were just returned to you. It's easier to pack a bunch of clean clothes together in your pack than having separate groups for clean and dirty -- and you certainly don't want to mix the clean and dirty together. So you see, it's really quite easy to end up wearing the same thing for days on end, like it or not.
Aside from all of the algebra required to figure out how to work with a limited number of clothes, preventing repetitious outfits and the wearing of things for days on end, there is another issue... a matter of function.
I consider each article of my clothing as a mechanic considers his tools. Each piece has a job to do and its own special feature that makes it work better for certain situations over others. For example, one of my shirts has an inside pocket that's accessible from the outside, a zippered pocket on the side, UV protection of SPF 30, air vents, and a collar that I can unfold to protect the back of my neck from the sun. It's the Swiss Army knife of button downs. I like to wear this shirt when we're out for the day visiting a palace, or ruins, or just exploring a town. My cash is nicely hidden and easily accessible via the inside pocket, and the zippered side pocket is perfect for my camera lens. The other shirts I have -- the plain ones, without bells and whistles or any pockets, require that I have a backpack and/or pants with pockets to carry my things. Incidentally, I made the mistake of bringing one pair of pants without pockets -- it's hell when I'm left with nothing to wear but the pocketless pair of pants and a pocketless shirt.
You can see that getting dressed is not as straightforward as one would think. Before leaving home to travel, I figured that getting dressed while on the road, with the minimal amount of clothing I would have, would be simple... a no-brainer. And in some ways it has been simple -- it's when I'm confronted with an entire closet full of clothes at home that I freeze up and ironically, end up wearing the same type of outfits on a daily basis. All of you who know me probably envision me in jeans and a black t-shirt when you think of me... Let me add here that while at home I may wear the same type of clothing, at least the clothes are clean.
So here I am, and having worked through some 'issues' through writing this piece, I've discovered that maybe my resolution to stop wearing the same thing for days on end is futile because, to a large extent, with the schedules of traveling and laundry and all... sometimes it's beyond my control. And, equally important, my clothes are more than a mere fashion statement... my clothes are more than a personal expression of my style -- my clothes are not apparel. My clothes are tools.
posted by Cheryn at 3:54 PM
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