How to Pack for the Person You’d Like to Become

We moved out of our little terrace house last weekend. Our dining room full of boxes is now stacked neatly in the third floor spare room of a sprawling Victorian house in the groovier bit of Leicester. We have a surprising amount of stuff for having just moved here last November with a 30kg luggage allowance (half of which was baby clothes and gear).

At least we don’t have to abandon everything again.

That gets tired fast. Minimalism and simplicity be damned- sometimes I just wish I could leave a country with all my books and shoes intact.

Figuring out what makes the cut is a task I find both exhausting and inspiring. I mean, I’m nearly 40 years old and over the years I have acquired some stuff. Not as much as if I’d lived a rather more stable life but still- I’m not as minimalist as my luggage allowances want me to be.

This leads to the curious chore of trying to figure out what I will need when I move to [insert country here]. Not just practical things like hair brushes or mobile phones (because those can be bought after arrival). I’m talking about the more personal things, the things that people see, the things that define you in many ways: clothes, shoes, portable bits of art and decoration, equipment for hobbies and interests.

I’ll give you an example.

About 10 years ago, I moved to the middle of Turkey to teach in a K-12 school. I researched the city and learned that it was notoriously conservative and traditional. I adjusted my wardrobe choices accordingly- long skirts, long sleeved blouses, bulky turtleneck sweaters, loose fitting trousers. Totally not my style, but hey- when in Rome and all.

Then I got there and discovered that all the women working at my hard core secular school were fashion plates in spike heels and butt-hugging fancy pants and push-up bra enhanced slinky tops. Not only was I curiously and unnecessarily dowdy, but also clad in a wardrobe that made me feel like I wasn’t even myself any more. I had to live with this weird sense of disconnect for the whole school year, as my body shape never quite fit the local clothes properly.

It took me a few more years to readjust my faulty Turkish wardrobe, but eventually I got it right- some groovy modernized shalwar kameez from Mumbai boutiques, some powder blue platform Mary Janes and knee high cobbler-built fake Docs, a half dozen thigh high stripy socks, some hand tailored funky dresses like something out of a messed up 1940s detective film noir.

If I had known how much arriving in a new place with all the wrong things would affect my sense of self and sanity, I would have done things very differently.

In my latter years in Turkey, upon returning from a visit home or abroad, I would edit my wardrobe and other luggage based on who I wanted to be that time around. A fresh start with each return. A new and better me!

1. Groovy purple shoes with yellow leather daisy sewn on for fun? Check!
2. Funky orange velvet jacket with curious embroidery? Check!
3. Jeans that actually fit and look good and aren’t weirdly matronly? Check!
4. Specific Cds for my Discman (and later on, mixes for my MP3 player)? Check!
5. Art posters and prints to decorate the flat? Check!
6. Water colour paints and brushes and paper? Check!
7. Books representing what I found most interesting at that point (felt making, Ottoman history, yoga, Turkish, etc)? Check!

When I left Turkey and moved to Shanghai six years ago, I had to pack very carefully. I didn’t want to screw it up so much again.

Who did I want to be in China? Did I still want to be the purple shoed, velvetty, semi-granola yabanci who stayed out too late too often, drew elaborate surrealist doodles all over management meeting notes and regularly got accused of getting dressed in the dark (or, as one boss noted, like a 6 year old)?

I was going through some odd inner adjustments at that time and wasn’t sure. I had put away my Turkish fripperies because I wanted to be taken maybe a bit more seriously and to feel a little more clean-lined and stripped back, but ended up leaning a bit too far in the other direction.

For a year in Shanghai, I was (sigh) professional and pared down. I wore tailored blouses, tailored office skirts, tailored office trousers, boring (by my standards) shoes. I hadn’t packed my art or my paints. I was still a bit of a blank slate. I went to cocktail hours after work and fit in with the accountants. It was unnerving.

Eventually I cobbled together art and shoes and clothes that made me feel more like myself and who I’d like to be, reaching a little further each time into new directions of possibility, adding small details like silk replicas of my old Mumbai shalwar kameez, bits of art and general pretty things from all over Asia and North Africa, some random diving gear, bundles of cheese cloth (for wok experiments), a yogurt maker, a hand cranked pasta maker and extra nose rings to the collection.

When we hastily moved to Leicester last November, I was very pregnant. My paltry luggage allowance allowed for a few utilitarian maternity tops and my thankfully accommodating jeans, with a few carefully chosen pretty things (Iranian jewelry box, Moroccan mirror, Chinese communist propaganda mini poster). Oh, and a winter coat that was on its last legs and my cat and zombie shoes. And a ton of baby stuff.

It wasn’t exactly a collection of things that would see me through indefinitely but it would do in the short term.

And now, less than a year later, 25kg lighter than when I got here (thanks, Thwack!), I have to figure out who I want to be in Vietnam. Which clothes will make me feel comfortable in my own skin? None of the clothes I had arrived with in November fit now, and Asia being Asia, I’m not relying on my ability to find anything that fits in Vietnam. Which art or decoration or music or hobby will make me feel happy and inspired?  How many kitchen accoutrements will I wish I’d packed? Will kitchen stuff even be my thing, as it eventually became in Shanghai? Should I start over with new art and decor? Do I even want to bring things that I mentally still associate with Shanghai onward to Hanoi? Do I still want to be the wok and mop chick?

Who will I be in Hanoi? How can I pack for a person who is still mostly hypothetical?

Never mind practical tips for packing for a RTW back packing trip. All those packing cubes and quick dry underpants and all. Packing for long term expattery is a weird and tricky psychological experiment in self awareness.