back & forth

I've lost count by now. How many times have I gone back and forth?

It starts the night before when I change my wallet and charge the other cell phone. The one is shiny silver, full of American-style plastic and receipts from places like Target and Starbucks, matchbooks from Manhattan restaurants that were too trendy in 2003, perfect now. The other one is a little hand batik purse that zips, green and white, and sometimes carries my tongue ring or ipod, but usually just cash.

Then comes shoes. I always say that the only time I put on sneakers in Grenada is when I'm getting dressed for the airport, and I'm not exaggerating. After nearly three years in the West Indies, socks just make me sad. In the rain forest and while sailing I wear tevas. Otherwise it's flip flops. At the peak of my slipper lunacy, I had over thirty pairs, of all imaginable colors and varieties. When I'm going from New York to Grenada, I wear sneakers, of course, but change while collecting my luggage.

These years have been haunted by a vague sense of dislocation. I'm always separated from half my stuff. But it's not about *stuff*, per se. It's about the small questions that punch holes in my reality: Didn't I just buy a ton of trouser socks? Where's my favorite pair of jeans? That cocktail dress jacket, did I ever have the shoulder pads taken out? Which uncle has my son's (non-replaceable) birth certificate filed away? Where am I registered to vote?