From Sonipat to Sicily: a packing ritual

The Cabin Aluminum 55 sits open on the bedroom floor. Beside it: a Voyager Duffel 45, two pairs of shoes, three linen shirts, a pair of trousers I have not worn in four years, the small brown leather pouch my mother gave me, and a passport that needs to be put somewhere I will remember when the taxi arrives at four in the morning.

This is a ritual. I will tell you the order of it, and what I have learned.

First, the absurd things

Before anything practical: a small stack of paperbacks I will not read; a notebook I will not write in; a fountain pen that will leak somewhere over the Arabian Sea. These are non-negotiable. The point of a long flight is to imagine a version of yourself you do not, in fact, become — and you cannot imagine that version without the props.

The shoes go in first

Always. Heel-to-toe along the base of the cabin, dust bag side up. They take the weight of everything that follows.

Linen, folded the long way

Linen does not crease the way cotton does, and even if it does, the crease becomes part of the costume. I fold long, never small. Six shirts make a single neat brick.

The leather pouch goes in the duffel, never the cabin

This is the only rule that does not bend. The cabin will be searched at security. The cabin will be opened by hands you cannot see. Things of meaning go with the duffel, which stays under the seat, which stays in your sight.

The empty space

Whatever is left is the room you give yourself. I leave perhaps twenty percent — for the small object you find at a market, for the bottle of olive oil that is too good to ship, for the linen jacket you buy in Palermo because the heat there is more honest than the heat at home.

Pack like a person who wants to come back changed, and like a person who knows the bag will outlast the trip.

— Ajay