I’m getting ready for another big x-country move—California to South Carolina. Packing is painful. I deliberate the necessity of every item and after days of sorting stuff I am mentally exhausted. I have one pile of stuff that is the “I’d like to bring it if there is room in the shipping container, but am okay with leaving behind” pile.
The thing I like the most about road trips is stopping to check out abandoned things and photographing them. I rarely do anything with these photos. I just enjoy the process of making them. As I was starting to shutdown my computer to pack it up for the move I quickly glanced through images from previous road trips and saw an interesting lesson in all of these abandoned things. Things that were once important. Things someone built, needed, painted, designed, desired. Now they decay. It makes me feel a little funny as I loose precious moments deciding if this blue resume paper that I’ve had since 1992 is worth keeping, hating the idea of it being wasted. Maybe someday I’ll borrow an old typewriter and type letters to all of my friends on that paper just to justify all of the moves I put it through. Or maybe I’ll drop it off at the thrift store. And what about this pressure cooker. I haven’t used it all year, but man, the next time I want artichokes it will come in handy. And on and on….
