Waiting for the Bolt Bus on my way to NY last week I started chatting with the woman next to me in line. It turned out that she was a Philosophy professor and Villanova and was headed to NY to see her daughter, and then the two of them were going to Europe for a month.  That’s all very nice, but that’s not what was amazing, what was amazing was that she had one large messenger bag and one rolling suitcase just a size up from carry on.  For a MONTH IN EUROPE.

I think she wanted me to care about and discuss the paper she was giving somewhere—Sweden?  England?  Who knows and who cares—she had packed a small-to-mid size suitcase for A MONTH IN EUROPE.

I couldn’t help myself, because I couldn’t focus on anything else. Yes, I am the person at faculty parties who blurts out to deans and strangers from other departments, “I LOVE your SHOES!”  So.

When I revealed to her that I was too distracted by her bag to concentrate on anything else she said, she looked at me rather blandly and said, “I pack light.”  And “I’ll mostly have access to a washer and dryer.”

I was still stupefied. And transported back to the home I had just left. My walk-in closet is actually a 12 x 10 room.  And I still have to switch clothes from summer to winter.  In fact, the weather has been so erratic that I’m still in a state of transition—I have tubs of summer clothes and have wrangled out a pair of shorts here, a light skirt there, but I have sweaters folded in piles on my dresser and heaps of heavy jeans and boots on the floor, and …you get the idea.

The whole experience—the light-packing philosopher and my overly full closet, got me thinking about my own upcoming trip to Ireland. Of course, I’ve already planned which bags to take and I was thinking I’d “limit” myself to my largest suitcase (32 inches high, 20 wide, 12.5 deep) and a rolling hard-sided carry-on, and my big rainbow ribbon bag which could fit a pocketbook dog, a laptop, AND an 18-month old.  And that’s downsizing.

I mean really. I spend next-to-no money on clothes. Sales, thrift stores, “designer outlets” like Ross and Burlington, but this enable me to have a lot of clothes. And I never throw anything away because one never, ever, ever, knows when an occasion to wear a crushed silk white vest may arise (it already has—once). I once went to Palm Springs, CA, and only noticed, upon unpacking, that I had packed 5 black skirts. For a week’s stay. But one was longer, one was shorter, one was t-shirt material, one was rayon—I know you know what I mean.

I’ve looked at photos of the bedroom in the faculty housing and —1) this is faculty housing; and 2) it’s Ireland, so the closet is no more than a foot wide—they look like one of those Ikea wardrobes we buy here to put in our attics or basements as extra storage.  Anyway.

I’m telling myself that maybe this excursion into less will be life-changing, will be good for me, will help me to minimize at home.  I’m also wondering if my roommate will mind if I use the closet in the hall…