Traveling Light

Greetings to all!

So far, we have uncovered a passing sense of self-reliance and a hidden math ability. Sarah Hightower is coming into focus. She comes and goes over time, and in some instances, she becomes brilliantly clear but only for a moment. I see her in other people. I see the qualities that I can grab onto and at the end of the exercise, she starts to fade again only to resurface, reappear in someone else. But also, over time, I find that I am closing in on her, closing in on my fictional self, Sarah Hightower.

When I arrived at my freshman dorm on that first day of college, I was surrounded by girls who looked, for all intents and purposes, like me. They had come from small towns, big cities, farms, and a place I had only heard of, Long Island. The thing that we all had in common, other than this new address, was that our parents had loaded up the car with everything they thought we needed and driven us to college. Even now, if you drive by Barnard and Columbia on the days that new students move in, you will see this ritual played out every year - new student, wistful parents, cars full of a year's worth of clothes, food, equipment, and mementos.

There was one girl missing on my move-in day. We took an informal head count that evening and remarkably, one girl had not yet arrived. We all spent the rest of that evening unpacking all that gear. She breezed in the next morning. She had flown in, by herself, with nothing more than a backpack and an American Express card. I was enthralled. While I was buried in my small town stuff, she made do with a change of clothes until the next day when she went to Saks and bought what she needed. She then picked up some t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and a jacket on her way to buy books. Just like that, she was set and I was still unpacking.

That girl changed my life. I realized, watching her, that I too could travel light. I could prioritize my life in such a way that I didn't need the gear, the bags, the stuff. I would be known in my family as the one who travels light. This girl might have come in late to mask the fact that her family wasn't coming in with her the way mine did. I just figured her parents were spies or in a witness protection program. Sarah Hightower travels light and she travels alone.

And this is not to say that I am completely liberated from accumulating stuff. I just don't take it with me when I travel.

Sincerely,
Nilesite