Here's the first thing that I learned: I don't need as much as I thought I would while on the plane. My first time across the Atlantic, I packed three novels and four comic trade paperbacks. I think, by the end of it, I read one comic and half of a novel. The thing is: an eight hour flight sounds like a daunting task, particularly when you put in a plane change, as I tend to have. Honestly, though, that time is not empty time.
For example, when I saw that I would have a two hour layover in Frankfurt, I imagined needing to fill two hours. Truthfully, it took me about an hour to get from one terminal to another, which included two trips through security. By the end of it, I think I had about twenty minutes to fill at the terminal, and I spent most of that making sure I had made it to the correct terminal.
On the plane, of course, there is a lot of time. On average, my flights take about seven and a half hours from Heathrow to Chicago (a little more if I fly from Zurich or Frankfurt, but not too terribly much; less if I can snag a direct flight from Birmingham, but again, not by much). Most flights, though, punctuate your journey with food and snack services. I find that just shy of two hours of my journey is filled with eating and drinking. Then, the first twenty minutes and the last twenty minutes are spent taking off and landing, during which time I sit completely upright with no electronic items in use. Likewise, all my overhead gear needs to be stored, so I a really stuck to a book. I don't know about you all, but I have trouble focusing on much when the plane is banking and turning, engines full bore. Once in the air, the flight crew starts with the snacks. Then, at least on international flights, the movies start.
A brief aside about movies: I see a lot of movies. At home, I am lucky enough to have access to a pass which lets my Mom see as many movies as she wants for free, and take two other people with her. My Mom and I tend to see about four or five movies a week, and then I'll rent from the Redbox or watch on Netflix another two or three movies. All in all, there is not a lot that I haven't seen. In the old days, airplanes used to get movies that were recent, but not particularly new. For instance, when I fly to London for New Years Eve in 2006, I had seen all the movies I was interested in and the ones I was left with were movies I never wanted to see. This past few trips, though, the movies have been pretty recent. For example, on one trip, I saw Never Let Me Go, a Kiera Knightly movie (sorry Lizzie) that was actually pretty good. The thing was, it had not been released yet in the UK. This past trip I saw No Strings Attached,Rango, and Unknown, three movies I missed at the theatre, but which had not been released on DVD yet. In my eight trips across the ocean, there has not been a single trip where there wasn't at least two movies that I wanted to see.
Now, I will say this: some flights are better about their movies than others. For example, United and Delta just run the movies, so you have to be on the channel when it starts to see the whole thing. American will start the movie, and then start it again about ten minutes later, so you have a few opportunities to catch it. Swiss Air is probably the greatest of them all, offering each passenger complete control. Each seat comes with an on-demand remote that allows you to choose the movies; pause, rewind or start whenever you choose; and offers a range of languages and subtitling. The Gold Standard for in-flight movies has to be Swiss Air.
Between the movies, the food, take off and landing, I was really left with little idle time. And honestly, the crew tries to push you to fall asleep as soon as dinner has been served. The plane is usually dark, and the crew asks that all the blinds be closed. Because most people are watching movies, not many of the overhead lights are switched on. The darkness and the white noise of the engine usually gets me to drift off for a bit.
With each successive trip, I have found that I can pack less and less in my carryon. This past trip, I packed my laptop (obviously), two novels and a comic book. Had I been able to get to the airport without a five hour train journey (no movies or food there) and without a night at the hotel alone, I may not have even packed that much.
Despite getting better at the carryon luggage, my checked bag continues to be an issue. It helps that I can store some things overseas, but I still feel that I need to bring most of my life with me when I come home for the summer. In all honestly, I probably don't.
Last summer, I checked two bags, both of which exceeded the weight limit. One bag was so heavy, I needed to unpack some of it and add it to my carryon. I brought half my comic collection and a ton of criticism books, expecting that I would spend the summer writing my dissertation. This summer, I realized the folly in that thinking, and only packed the novels I'd finished reading through the year (and wanted to leave here in America with the rest of my collection), one criticism book that is germane to the one chapter I want to get written, and the book I need for my presentation at Comic Con.
One thing that I still struggle with, though, is clothing. Here, I have found a genius solution that creates as many problems as it causes: vacuum bags. These packing bags allow me to pull all the air out of the bag, which collapses things like clothing and bedding (which I leave in Aberystwyth) to a much smaller size. In this way, I can bag two bags worth of stuff into one suitcase. Seems great, right?
Unfortunately, packing all that stuff into a smaller size reduces the size of the clothing, and increases it's weight. Fitting two t-shirts into the space of one makes that same space two t-shirts heavy. In this way, my suitcase becomes nearly twice as heavy as it should be. I have yet to pack my suitcase in such a way that it does not exceed the weight limit.
My problem is the length of time that I am going for. On short trips, like this one I am currently on in New York, I pack exactly what I need with little extra clothing. However, for four months, time in which I might not know what I will need to do, it's hard to know what to pack. I have a wedding to attend, a presentation to give, two vacations to take, etc. etc. If I hang out with just my friends, then I won't need too much more than a few button up shirts and a boat load of t-shirts. But if I end up going out like I did last year, I need a lot more fancy clothing. With all this time, it's hard to know what I am going to need.
The problem here is that over-weight bag charges are more expensive that extra bag charges. A smarter man would figure out how to get the same amount of stuff into more, lighter bags. Because I am by myself, though, I tend to need free hands. As I see it, fewer bags are more important than lighter bags. What I need to realize, to get the bags down to the minimum number, and have these bags meet weight limits, is that I don't need as much stuff as I think.
There is this scene from Up in the Air where George Clooney's Alex is showing Natalie Keener's Anna that she doesn't need all the baggage that she brings. He throws away the pillow that she's packed, the enormous winter coat she has and so on. He eventually pares her down to what can fit in a carryon.
The more I travel, the more I realize that Alex might have it right. I think I value my possessions to greatly. I pack almost every t-shirt I own (around 40 or so) and a dozen or so other shirts (button ups, polos, et. al.). I pack a lot of socks, which really, I don't need. I was trying to think about why I have such anxiety over getting rid of my things and I settled on one conclusion: ownership.
I don't have a house. I don't even have an apartment. My stuff is in two different storage units across two continents. My things, my books and clothes and what not, that is the only stuff of mine that I have. Having things is a sign of having a place in the world, and since I don't have a place in the world, I feel like I need to bring my stuff with me everywhere. Literally load up all my baggage and drag it across the country with me to show the world that I do exist. What I need to do is realize there is more to being a person than just having things. Once I can feel secure with myself, separate from my things, then I can get down to one bag, one carryon, and all of it meeting the maximum bag weight.
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