Mark's Pages

March 15, 2004:

She organizes her world horizontally, spreading things out across the available surfaces so that she can reach them easily. She waits until checkout to throw things away, deciding what's trash and what's not as part of the process of re-packing.

By contrast I'm more vertical, I never really unpack, I just take things from my bags as I need them, putting them back when finished; and I immediately throw away things that I'm through with. In a way my goal is to remain as mobile as possible, so that I can pick up and leave with minimal effort.

This was one of the most confusing things for us traveling together, in part because we never discussed these protocols, we simply acted as we each always had, finding ourselves for a long while baffled by the other's behavior, until eventually our mutual miscomprehension led to moments of tetchy friction. She wanted me to help with trash, but I didn't know for sure what she was through with; I wanted to hit the road, but she had to pack; she wanted me to carry bags, but I wasn't certain when she was ready.

This isn't complaint, it's insight, and it wasn't until I'd been by myself several days before I became quiet enough inside to find it. It leaves me hopeful that in future we can better manage our points of friction, for instance by developing some agreed-on mutual habits for checkin and checkout which will allow us our differences while making our simple responsibilities more explicit.