There’s a big blob of raspberry jam on the front of my white top. I tried to blot it off but instead ended up smearing it into the cotton fiber and have now left a red streak across the left breast pocket. This is a problem, because it’s my only Sunday top. And I’ve forgotten to do the laundry this week so my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday tops are all dirty. Shirts are currently on strict rotation as there are only seven in my temporary closet, and in my life. No more than six days can go by without laundering because I’ll run out of material to clothe my upper body. My trouser situation is slightly worse as I have only one pair for daily use. If blobs of jam find their way onto them I am shit out of luck. Shoes, I’m currently working with two pairs: one casual and one even more casual. One Winter jacket, a fleece, a light Summer dress, whose existence has been of absolutely no use to me whatsoever through the Wintertime in London, my camera equipment, journal, laptop, phone, and basic toiletries. This modest collection of items, by western standards, are currently all of my worldly possessions. Which means at the present moment I possess all of the basic tools needed to produce media content, maintain clean teeth, hair, face, body and to cover my private parts to a socially acceptable standard for public places. No more, no less. I even went so far this month as to buy the ultra waxy brand of dental floss which was a daring and decadent addition to the toiletry bag. I went to meet a friend last week in a trendy part of town and she asked me what I’d be wearing. I said my trusty Monday through Sunday jeans, my Saturday top if I’d remembered to clean it, and either my casual pair of shoes or my other casual pair of shoes. She promptly laughed at my absurdity, told me not to show up looking like crap and then hung up. Such is the life of a gypsy. Not a literal gypsy, the kind originating in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent telling fortunes and living in caravans, but the modern, self-inflicted, professional kind. I’m poor, homeless and almost naked, but not, really.

It’s not entirely new territory for me, I’ve lived out of bags before, traipsing around parts of the Himalayas, southern Asia and Australia with what seemed like nothing more than a few bandannas and a pair of Tevas. But I’d never really done it before as a fully formed human, as a thirty something year old with looming societal expectations and a husband. We’ve lived in 6 different abodes in under 7 years and rather gotten used to the art of the “pack/unpack.” More a refined skill than a physical chore, this seemingly arduous task has some advantages. This kind of lifestyle provides ample nuggets of opportunity for the “de-crapping” of one’s life. Every time one is forced to lay everything one owns out on the bed and assess its importance in the grand scheme of things, emotions run high but decisions are made. Like deciding which John Hughes collector DVDs will be cast aside and left for trash, will it be Ferris Bueller or will it be Breakfast Club? A heartbreaking decision no child of the 80s wants to be faced with, but alas, it must be done. Despite the odd sentimental attachment to items symbolising your youth and existential teenage angst, one usually comes to the realisation that most things one acquires are really, essentially, just crap. It’s just that one isn’t necessarily provided the opportunities to come to this realisation until they’re forced to fit everything they hold dear in this life into 50.7 lbs. of cabin space. Every time the pack/unpack occurs, crap departs. The amount of excess crap in one’s life is often closely related to the frequency of the pack/unpack. I’d venture a guess to say the more one opens, closes and hauls baggage to and from different towns, cities and continents, the less material crap one inevitably is weighed down by. Such less crap in fact, that before you know it you’re back in London walking down the road wearing nothing but your bra, your candy cane socks and those old jeans. You’re lighter and less burdened by material comforts for sure, but you probably won’t be served at Subway.

It’s a funny thing only owning what you absolutely need. The odd days do inevitably arrive when you miss thumbing through that old stack of obscure vintage stamps of prominent Hungarian historical figures you found at a street stall in east London, or wish you had that Oscar Meyer Wiener whistle to conduct comprehensive social experiments on people’s tolerance levels, but for the most part, you never miss the crap. Decision making of any kind, which these days can be cause for heightened levels of anxiety and stress due to the sheer amount of choices that are screaming like a teething toddler for our attention, is now a breeze. The morning routine of leaving the flat, or hotel, or airport lounge, or in-laws house, or whatever structure with sleeping facilities inside it that we’re found inhabiting these days, is done in a matter of seconds. What used to involve dozens of minutes of deliberation over what type of shoe I might be in the mood to wear or what’s most suitable for the weather, or what outfit makes me look most like Mary Tyler Moore from her renegade days as Mary Richard, TV producer and all round female maverick of the 70’s, now involves a quick grab of the only items on offer. No thought, no deliberation, no comparison to the styles of television icons, and no subconscious wear and tear of the mind’s critical thinking capabilities. These are now preserved for thoughts of much higher importance, like how can I make real a difference in the world, why are British Starburst flavours so different to American Starburst flavours, and how on God’s green Earth is it statistically possible that I always get the economy seat with a broken screen, predicaments that I now have the additional time to ponder.

Speaking of too many choices, I used to find walking down the cereal aisle at the grocery store slightly unsettling but now I find it to be the single most terrifying human experience one can endure. The last time I accidentally wandered down this neverending labyrinth of high fructose corn syrup-induced nightmares, they found me curled up on the Captain Crunch shelf, having only made it 1/3 of the way down the aisle, my eyes devoid of life as I rocked back and forth, no recollection of how I’d gotten there. We won’t go into the time before that but let’s just say it involved several crushed boxes of Bran Flakes and a store wide effort to contain what I remember over the loud speaker as the “crazy lady in aisle 8 with the baseball bat.”

Most scenarios these days involving more than a simple “yes”, “no”, “is it customary to eat that part of the animal?” or “I’ll take whatever’s warmest,” sends me into a paralytic state somewhat resembling the cereal aisle debacle. Having lived close to the ground for a while now and relatively uninhibited by the drudgery of choice in my daily life, due to a healthy travel schedule to lesser developed regions and a general lack of interest in anything preceded by the words “buy two get one free,” I’ve completely lost the ability to process and cope with things like shopping malls, menus that read like Tolstoy novels, or the mere mention of a “holiday sale” or “mega-anything.” Like an Amazonian tribeswoman whose been thrust abruptly in front of an IHOP menu after a lifetime of eating whatever drops from the berry tree, my neurons stop communicating with each other when faced with so much choice. Just give me the daily special and I’ll be on my way thanks.

The truth is that eliminating this gamut of choice in our lives has itself been a choice. We’ve foregone traditional models of living and the comforts of security and stability to embark on something else. We’ve chosen to pare things down, to detach ourselves from attachments, to free ourselves from the bondage of crapdom and to remain geographically and psychologically open to the unique opportunities that arise in business and in life. We’ve unshackled ourselves from expectation and the promise of security in the short term, and have gone after something that, at the moment, looks a bit like an uncut episode of The Amazing Race. It’s fast and uncomfortable and the Tuk Tuk driver with Tourette’s keeps missing our stop and violently slamming on the brakes in 50mph traffic, but the journey itself is sweet and the rewards at the end are well worth riding for, assuming we get there in one piece. It feels dangerous at times being this deep in the hustle, like the ground beneath us might be ripped out at any moment. But I think we kind of like danger. There’s no surer way of feeling alive then positioning yourself as close to the edge as possible, where the views are the best but so too are the falls.

I can feel myself standing on this precipice, looking out over the endless abyss while the wind rushes past, unsettling my stance and blowing pebbles and dirt over the edge to their freefalling end. My hair flies across my face blocking my steady gaze and I have to keep my heels firmly pressed to the ground to feel as if I won’t too be blown over the cliff. It’s chaotic and uncomfortable. I don’t know for sure that I won’t lose my footing, that my concentration won’t break and the gust that’s coming in from every side won’t pick me up and drop me over the edge. But I can see the view. Out there it’s calm and the sky is the colour of a sun that’s just set. I keep my eyes out there. The wind continues to blow there’s chaos all around me and nothing’s coming easy. But I’m not stopping looking. If I lose focus and let the windstorm uproot me, that’s the end. I’m not interested in a diversion or a quicker way around the storm, the only way is through. Chaos might just be the prologue to peace, and I never read a book whose best chapter started first.

And so here I sit with my jam-stained shirt and my threadbare jeans, one foot on the edge and the other likely stepping down on my suitcase to force the zipper closed whilst I open the plastic packaging of Tide To Go Instant Stain Remover with my teeth. Having nothing feels unstable and scary, like Britney circa 2007 except without any baldness. But it’s also incredibly freeing, like Willy circa 1993 except without any whales. Which is I guess what life is all about anyways, having the faith to make a jump when your tank at Sea World doesn’t suit your ambitions anymore, and trusting you have the strength to make it over the brick wall and into the open seas ahead. If you’ve got a human friend and a Michael Jackson soundtrack to accompany you the whole way through then you already know what the ending will be, and it’s a good one.