Pants

Well, sitting on the bouncing number 7 bus to town yesterday I noticed a small tear of frayed white edges working its way across the left leg of my favorite jeans (although just to make sure we're not over sentimentalizing this, it is also my only pair of jeans). As I stared, it got me thinking about the times in our lives when the things that are the most comfortable begin to wear out. Now, back in my flat, I'm thinking about the fate of the pants, and apart from the fact that this confirms the glory of the double-kneed duck Carhartts for which such a fabric thinning would never be an issue, it might just be that these pants are now borderline for making the boxes to go home.

"'Home' you say?"

Why yes indeed. Sometimes you've just got to let go of things, whether those things are as simple as a pair of pants or as complicated as the place you've lived for the last two years. The next two months are now the time I have to figure out how to say goodbye to Liuyang and to China for the time being as I've decided to move on, first to Denver and a return to the greatest comforts of family and friends and then to London where I'll be entering the London School of Economics for a Masters in development studies. Big changes in life are big because they shatter the comforts of the past with the uncertainty of the future, and while I often rant against settling into comforts and routines, there is something, well, comforting about the attachments we inevitably form to places and even more so, to people. So as the months become weeks and the weeks days and packing approaches the sorting won't be limited to pairs of pants, which is too bad, 'cause man would that be easier.

Extraordinary

Speaking of more than a list, I've been prompted recently by Mike Lanemusings, a man who, not-so-recently returned from more than a year of travels around the world, has continued to solider on in the blogging world with some thoughts from home about the presence of the extraordinary. Check it out here for yourself http://mikelane.blogspot.com/ (Feb. 1st post) to say that I think what might seem unique to the situation of someone who's been bombarded by the neverending fresh stimuli of living out of a backpack for months on end is in fact a nearly universal phenomnon that assails our willingness to seek the extraordinary wherever we settle. There is some valiance in the fight against a comfort that blinds us to the opportunites for variety around us. I lamented to several people when I first started this blog that it sometimes seems so hard to write something worthwhile because things that would have seemed noteworthy upon my arrival now blur into the evil of a routine. So I'll wake tomorrow with a re-commitment to seek the extraordinary in the common of Liuyang, realizing that once you start looking, it's everywhere.

Unrelated note - Due to the rapid approach of the next holiday (5/1), I've gotten my butt in gear to start posting new photos on the Kodak site, including those from my trips to Fenghuang and Tibet this past Spring Festival and will post a day's travel worth each day. Take a look if you're interested.