I think that most people packing to go overseas or go anywhere,...

I think that most people packing to go overseas or go anywhere, feel some degree of excitement. In abstract, I feel excited about travel. However, packing always makes me feel anxious. It obliterates any excitement that might have been trying to surface. When I pack, I want to take everything with me, including my bed and possibly my bathroom. On the day of departure I develop an enormous attachment to my home, to my study and even to my electric toothbrush. I don’t want to leave any of them. I develop an even more ferocious attachment to New York City. Suddenly, every street looks perfect. The tourists who crowd the streets of SoHo, where I live, no longer seem irritating or intrusive. Suddenly they feel like old friends. Friends I don’t want to leave. The carbon monoxide I breathe in when Broome Street is packed with traffic bound for the Holland Tunnel, feels bracing and
beneficial.  Eventually I do calm down. Usually when I am on the plane and there is nothing I can do but look forward to where I am going.  Before I left for my LOLA BENSKY tour of Australia, I packed up my desk, I straightened up my pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners post-it notes and paperclips and put them neatly against the wall. I did this in much the same way my younger daughter used to line up her soft toys, her dolls and bears and dogs and an elephant, on her bed every morning before she went to Kindergarten. She used to give them one last look-over before she left. I think I do the same. I look at the notebooks and pencils and pencil sharpeners and then I walk out the door.