People are telling me I should talk about packing for a trip. I have gone carry-on for years now but my latest trip was a challenge because it was so varied. I had to think carefully, starting at the end, and assessing how much I could handle.

My trip: It began with an 18-day luxury cruise of French Polynesia (most of which I had done just last May and June, repeating this time deliberately because the trip promised a conclusions with stops at Pitcairn Island without a landing, and at Easter Island, with two days of excursions, unfulfilled); landing at Lima, Peru (with an extra unplanned excursion because of an emergency, already described); a flight to Dallas and a flight to Vancouver (using a wheelchair because of my vulnerable leg which required easy luggage for the sake of my pusher and me both); then four days visiting a dear friend in Vancouver (good for laundry, too); then a cross-city bus to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry ride to Gibson’s for another four days with another dear friend; followed by another ferry ride back to Horseshoe Bay and a cab ride back across the city to the train station to board VIA Rail for a 4-night, 4-day journey tho Toronto. I did it on one carry-on and a small backpack, mainly to carry my laptop compeer and my iPad mini.

How?

Well, as I’ve said before, you have to brace yourself: do not mind that you look like L’ll Orphan Annie, same outfit day after day - but not entirely. I had to dress (sort of) for dinner every night on the ship, not formally but what they call golf club casual. I had one long, black, embroidered Guatemalan dress and a long black skirt with different tops some of which doubled with cropped (black) pants or long (black) pants. I won’t go on. You’ll notice my colour scheme: black and white. Everything went with everything else, including shoes (three pairs) and my security blanket: a big, warm shawl, black and white, of course. I didn’t pack it, not only because it was too bulky to pack but also because I needed it, always, (I don’t like air conditioning.)

I had a black, foldable raincoat (nice design, looks like a theatre coat) which as it turned out, I never wore until I needed a housecoat on the train. (They provide terry robes on the ship.) I had a cabin with a sink and a toilet but I had to go down the corridor for my shower and didn’t have a bathrobe, so I wore my raincoat. The only thing I didn’t wear was my bathing suit; my leg wasn’t quite ready for the pool.

That’s all.

I think, though, that I need a lighter-weight carry on bag.

If you find my disappearances annoying how do you think I feel?

Here’s one of the reasons for my most recent defection: "Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman’s Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany" by Marie Jalowicz Simon, translated by Anthea Bell, foreword and afterword by Hermann Simon (her son). My paperback edition was just published in May, 2016, a gift from my partner on the screenplay we’re writing. Have I told you that the true story we’re working on takes place in Nazi Berlin in 1941-42? So the book is useful to me for what i can learn, but it’s also a knockout.

In 1942 20-year-old Marie Jalowicz, a Jewish Berliner, resolved to stay out of the concentration camps. She took off her yellow star, took on an assumed identity and went to ground - that is, she lived in the city avoiding capture until the end of the war. No papers, no no money, no food, no coupons, no bed. She moved from place to place dependent on the generosity and silence of people/strangers who supported her. No one informed on her, though there were times when she was in real danger, and in fact, suffered a great deal. Bu she didn't die.

She never told her story until shortly before her death in 1998, and then her son taped her account, told with amazing chronological accuracy and a memory for names, events and places, checked by her son and put together by him and the writer Irene Stratenwerth. It’s harrowing and moving and inspirational. Perhaps you will understand why I neglected my blog.

And then I feel guilty. Where is it written that I should feel guilty about not writing my own blog?

I’m not going there.