Learning: Trying things for yourself

      I've always been interested in parallels and connections. I've always thought the world is seemingly more complex then people often stop and ponder on. I would like to point out that one can ponder too much, and human brains are not capable of stretching too far out of what we ought to think about. Otherwise we'll overwhelm ourselves and start to break. I've seen it happen to people close to me, but I digress. Often times someone will mention something or say something, and what will spill out of my brain is something that matches with that phrase, or idea however loosely it may match. It's almost like my brain is searching my memories using the keywords that the person I'm talking to uttered. I'll tell them about the connection I've thought of and it's usually a loose connection and I often receive funny looks only to respond with frustration. Look how these two things I've thought of connect! It's so simple to me! But of course it's simple, and it makes sense to me. It's my brain that thought of it. Given that I am interested in parallels and comparison's and seeing the world constantly through how it connects to something else it would make sense to me that the best way to understand a concept, or an action is to try it ourselves. So here is What I Carried.

     The things I carried to New Orleans in the spring of 2013 were minimal. See, I left my home, my family, and my school to go New Orleans. I'd only been to New Orleans one other time and that was on a service trip the year before. I had fallen in love with the city. Or did I fall in love with the work I had done? Or did I fall in love with the idea that it was a viable place to go and that it was a viable place to go soon! So after the trip I hatched a plan to graduate early and go on my own service crusade to build houses.
     So I got on the train with two bags each weighing probably twenty-five pounds. One bag I had gotten for Christmas the year before. It was a green duffle bag that is waterproof. It's designed for canoeing. The other one is a bag, that by now, I guess I've had for nearly a decade. It's a backpacking bag, not huge, but not small either. This bag has stories of it's own. It's been to four continents and knows my back and central america extensively. It knows other places, but not as well.
     Inside the bags were clothes that were picked from all the rest, cowboy boots, Timberland boots, a blazer, my laptop, and some other shoes. Oh, and my beloved leather jacket was stowed away within the bags too. Other then those things I had my wallet on me and my phone on me. Physically, not much in total. There were other things though.
     The access to the six thousand dollars I had saved up from my past years working at the butcher shop. I was better at saving in those days. I'm not sure I could have left without that security. One would be surprised about the absence of a good amount of savings adds to your anxiety. There was of course, the fear of leaving my kingdom of Ithaca. There was the opportunity cost of leaving my tiny brother. He would be growing so fast, and I would not be there to witness. Witnessing your brother is everything/ There was the excitement of going somewhere new. Pride, that I was actually doing this. Actually moving thousands of miles away months before others were planning too, and to do good work too. There was of course the girl I was running away from and that tragedy. There was of course the girl I was running too, in some sense. A sense of unease and discomfort lingered around. I could smell unease in the air, every where I went in this new world I went too. But, wonder too. It would be a misstep to not include wonder. There was loneliness to discover when I got there. After all, I only knew four people in the city. There was a caution about trying to connect with those people too. Connect, and hang out, but not encroach on their lives too much. Balance is most things.  
     So, yes, I carried somethings. It is not comparable to what they carried in Nam. Or even comparable to the writing about things carried that Ti'm O'Brien manages to make look easy. Learning is putting yourself in the right shoes. I put myself in the right shoes when I came to New Orleans. I put myself in the right shoes here too. A pale parallel to Tim O'Brien, but an attempt I learned from.