My Life in Nine Boxes

The art of packing triage

It started many months ago, long before I even put my house on the market. Lying in bed, driving the car, watching TV, drinking my morning coffee. The flood of thoughts about what I needed to take with me to my new home in Vienna was constant – and constantly growing – in my brain! I created categories, then made lists, long lists. Then I made lists of those lists. It was quite the obsession.

It’s not the same as when you move, for example, from one house to another. If you can’t decide what goes and what doesn’t, you simply have the movers pack everything, and deal with it at some unspecified time in the future. After all, isn’t that what attics and basements are for?

Not so when you move abroad. This kind of packing requires the art of triage: What can’t I live without? What will be useful? What would be convenient or comfortable to have? What can I just get when I’m there? What do I want to keep but don’t need right away (i.e. storage)? What goes to the trash bin?

I was scrupulous at first, thinking that the size and weight of anything I shipped would add to the cost. “Do I really, really, need this?” was the measure by which my decisions were made.

I worked hard to lighten my load by uploading to my laptop all my music CDs and hundreds of photos. In cumulative hours, this alone consumed over a week!

Then in my shipping research I learned that there was a minimum level – sometimes cubic feet, sometimes pounds – below which all freight cost the same. What a reprieve! Now I could take on my move anything I wanted, as long as it did not exceed that minimum.

So when all the clothing, personal articles, cookware (non-metric!), tools, books, art, photos, decorations, professional files and office supplies were assembled, my life added up to nine boxes. And this is what it looked like:

What I'm taking to Vienna

And then, a couple of days before the house closing, a truck pulled up to my driveway, and a very nice, hefty fellow came and loaded my nine boxes onto his truck. I confess feeling a little ambushed by the lump that rose in my throat as I watched my most important worldly possessions disappear down the street, but the driver had reassured me that everything would be OK.

And it was. My boxes arrived at the loading dock and got shrink-wrapped onto a pallet, ready for loading into a container that they will ‘share’ with other shippers’ pallets. My boxes have not yet sailed, though, because of the pre-holiday crush at the shipyard, and some disparity between the company’s estimate and the final invoice. But I’ve been assured everything will make it there on time and the pricing discrepancy will be resolved. I’m counting (again) on Karma to see me through.

Meanwhile, the process of packing triage is not over. My next challenge is to make sure that, when I fly to Vienna, my two checked bags don’t exceed 50 pounds apiece. I’m already going to pay a penalty for having more than the one piece allowed, but hey, gimme a break. This ain’t no vacation – I’m moving. And they also tell me my carry-on can’t exceed 18 pounds. Good luck with that! So I’m thinking … maybe I should smuggle some of the heavier items in Scout’s crate, since I only pay one straight fee for her, and there’s no weight limit!  H-m-m-m-m-m-m …….