Were You Wearing Heels? Wardrobing for JourneyistheDestination, 1995

Wardrobing for JourneyistheDestination

Look #1

Some of you have expressed an interest in what I was wearing 20 years ago on my solo backpacking trip around the world. I have blocked the filthy rags from memory, having incinerated them upon my return, but I have pictures!!!!!!! 

 

Two things: 1. This was before Christian Louboutin came out with his red soled stilettos, which I surely would have preferred to the Paragons. 2. Despite the really pared down wardrobe, my rucksack was like 50 pounds.  Maybe 60. There was a lot of unnecessary crap in there. I don't have photo documentary on this, but I do have witnesses, such as my parents, boyfriend, and best friend, who shook their heads sadly when I tried to drag the beast out of the house to the airport.  My best friend ended up carrying 3/4 of the contents of this monstrosity back to the US from Bangkok five months later after meeting me for a few weeks to travel together in Thailand.  Now picture all that weight, on top of my own quite healthy, well fed weight, on those teeny  Louboutin spikes...actually no,...take that back...structural engineers have made tremendous strides since 1995, note the Manhattan skyline, so maybe now in 2015 it could be done but back then no, definitely not an option.  I had to do the Paragons, and the horror of those boots, my embarrassment, feelings of frumpiness and was my only complaint about the trip.  I mean, I lived in Seattle, during the grunge era for 5 years and I would not have been caught dead in Paragon Sports urban day hikers.

Look #2

The Essentials

Tops: 

Long sleeve tee shirt, 1 black (see model, left), 1 white

Short sleeve shirt, 1 black, 1 white (on model)

Bottoms:

Featured ankle length skirt in black and white (see model above)

super baggy lightweight black pants (see model, left and below)

jeans, baggy

Footwear:

Paragon Sports Day Hiker Boots in Green & Brown (on model)

black leather sandals, of the flat, sturdy, foot covering variety

Outerwear: Mens black Gortex hooded rain jacket in Medium (not sure why I felt I needed something that huge, it was pre-baby in the bjorn days...)

Unmentionables:

Well, let's leave it at that, but seriously, if you are traveling for longer and harder than your underthings can hold out, have someone in supersize me America send you new undies, along with your new guidebooks.  Mine gave out in Thailand and comparing my relative girth to your average man's I did have concerns when going to the market to procure replacements.  I hand gestured for the BIGGEST size panties ( all were prewrapped in plastic so you can't tell), and by golly were they about three sizes too small....it's all about the journey.

You Can Mix and Match




















 

A Scarf Provides Modesty for Visiting Mosques, Temples and Other Holy Places.
You Know What??? Just Wear the Damn Head Scarf

 

You Can Accessorize With a Scarf
 

 

 





 



A Colorful Bag Adds Personality to a Neutral Palate



 

Express Stress. High Atlas Pass, February 22, 1995.

 

Express Stress. High Atlas Pass, February 22, 1995.
On the way to Ouarzazate from Marrakesh. Bus got stuck in the snow for several hours, which for me was a terrifying relief, terrifying because what woman wants to be stuck on an isolated mountain pass with a bus full of super aggressive, hostile men; a relief because of a break from the death defying hairpin turns at breakneck speed on snowy mountain roads. Needless to say, did not offer to help push the bus, but snapped this shot instead.
Note the traditional brown Berber cloak http://www.johntyman.com/sahara/s296.jpg. It was here that I learned where George Lucas must have gotten his inspiration for the Jawas http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100915195128/starwars/images/7/79/Jawa_SWSB.png in Star Wars

Soul Searching

Market Mosque, Marrakesh

Once upon a time...

Twenty years ago, on February 13, 1995, I boarded a one-way swissair flight to Casablanca from JFK, my first stop on solo backpacking trip around the world that would take me from New York to Morocco to Egypt, Israel, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and Hong Kong, where on September 1, 1995 I boarded an American flight to Boston, with stops in Narita, Tokyo and Seattle, Wa, which is in fact where this trip all began. Twenty years have passed, and since I am not so much in the habit of getting on one-way flights to anywhere but here, I have decided to revisit this journey. 
I am not sure what format this will take or how often I will post or even if I will maintain the momentum over the next seven months. The reality is that traveling on one’s own is often a dreary, frustrating experience, especially on a really tight budget. I’m not a travel writer, and I am not particularly adventurous (no war zones, war lords, heroin dens, solo camping in the desert, and the like). There’s a lot I just don’t remember about my trip- I look at some of my pictures (very few of which I labeled after the fact of course), and I think where the hell was that and why did I even bother to take that picture, it’s so bad.
I am not even exactly sure why I took the trip in the first place.  It was never like a girlhood dream, like working for an oil company (seriously, those of you who know me know that this is true) or on some kind of list of things to do before you die.  Wasn't a list girl, as you all also know. I met a woman in Seattle who had just come back from a similar venture: she was tall and blond and thin and vivacious and spiritually tuned-in; a result of being in India for a few months, and I thought, wow that sounds cool.  I want to be her, I want to do that. And the seed was planted; though clearly I knew I wouldn’t come back any taller, blonder, thinner or cooler as a person, I actually did think that I would come back spiritually enlightened, that I would get out of the fashion business, that I would get real about my future, that I would become zen and less angsty about life, that I would just become centered and know exactly what to do next. 

How Does It All Turn Out?
Essaouira, March 6, 1995

I would ultimately be disappointed, when upon my return, months after and even years after, it dawned on me that I was exactly the same:  kind of unmoored (some might generously call it a free spirit, but I am not that), totally unwilling to make a long term plan for my life and then follow through. I fell back into fashion and came up with a new plan: to enter the Peace Corps and go to Jordan, which is of course was not a real plan for me but an escape hatch from life. Not that it is not okay to be young and single and free, exploring the world and meeting people, as long as you can pay your own way, but there comes a point when you realize that that just isn't working anymore, and I think this trip was the first attempt to figure it all out.
So, here I am now, making a good faith effort to look back and process and I am really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

 

Journey is the Destination: Introduction

This is me:  a settled gypsy, living anonymously in Brooklyn as a wife and mother.

Here's the deal: I operate mainly as an energy analyst, specializing in the liquefied natural gas trade, but I am going to spend the next seven months of my life blogging on the side about a trip I took 20 years ago.

Why, uh, why write extensively about something that you did 20 years ago that is only kind of mildly interesting to mention at a play date? Why not?  There's kind of a poetic beauty in looking back on a specific day 20 years before and think OH, my God!!!! I kept a daily travelogue, just mundane matters such as where I went, where I slept, who I slept with (kidding!  woman traveling alone no-no!!), how much I spent, what travelers checks I cashed and so on.   I also have some pictures kicking around to jog my memory.

But really, the thought process:  In my free time, which is really just the 1-hr each way commute to midtown, I read, usually classical fiction and/ or other well written books. And I am super picky about that, life is too short to read garbage. And I just read Cheryl Strayed's Wild http://www.amazon.com/Cheryl-Strayed/e/B001HCXFIE , inspired to do so for three reasons: 1. my own brother's ongoing project to hike the Pacifc Coast Trail 2. All the movie buzz- I mean the book came out in 2012 and finally, but most important, 3. I needed a break from Moby Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick, which I really need to slog through before I die. Did I mention that I am middle aged?

And, if you really want my opinion, I thought the book was terrible, as she was/is super annoying and she gained almost no self awareness whatsover. But guess what?  She did that solo hike in 1995 and wrote about it almost 20 years later and now Reese Witherspoon is playing her in a movie and you know what?  If she can write about her trip, well so can I .  Now I have no designs on books or movies.  And I am not a writer, in that sense.  I really just want to see what happens, see if maybe I possibly have gained any self awareness since I set off 20 years ago.  Don't get excited, I really don't think so, but maybe I can write it in and come out a better person somehow.

But I have another inspiration for this blog--gotta give credit where credit is due--early on the Cheryl Strayed book as I was thinking this book is terrible and I can't get through it, I mean did she hike or hitchhike this trail or what, I found this mordantly critical blog of the book (and no I have not blogged, read blogs or otherwise frittered away my days as an energy analyst doing things other than analyzing energy) http://cherylstrayedisaliar.blogspot.com/ that totally amused me and served as my reading companion to Wild. Califohioan https://www.blogger.com/profile/11663315815873691593 is on the harsh side, but hey, that's my ultimate inspiration for this blog, so let's get on with it.

Once upon a time...