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We Have Too Much Plastic
and other lessons of an ex-pat life
The hangers, my god the hangers. When you are the one paying for the move, the plastic is always the first thing to go. The dishrack. The toilet brush, the soap dish. You look at these things — available (you assume) everywhere — and wonder if it’s really worth the cost to lug them halfway across the world.
There’s always one box that turns into ten boxes of stuff you leave behind. Three of those boxes end up being clothes hangers.
“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” Arnold Bennett
A comfortable life without change has its own appeal. There’s a kind of security in not having to think too much about, well, everything. Moving a lot forces one to struggle with many of the modern world’s conveniences. Things like water reveal hidden truths when you have to go out and set them up every two or three years. There’s variation on the old truth that nothing can be understood until it’s taken away. Such as: Nothing can be understood until you have to do it all over again. Or until you do it in a foreign language. Or simply work harder to get than you expected.
