Traveling Light

Back when I was a reporter, I sometimes wrote stories that were too long to fit in the space allotted by the copy desk. As a result, I spent hours sitting beside my editor, trimming stories to fit. It was editing by a thousand cuts: a word here, a phrase there, all to gain a line and get the story to fit in the space allowed.

I hated it.

After a while, I learned to say, "Just let me cut it." I would return to my desk, lop out an entire section, write a transition ro two, and return the correctly sized story to my editor.

I preferred the single deep cut to the thousand small ones.

Now that I'm editing my Camino backpack to get the load to 15 pounds, I seem to have embraced the thousand-cut edit.  Save a couple ounces here so I can add an ounce over there. Spend money on the lighter-weight item. Give up entire categories of my normal routine (farewell, anti-aging serums, night creams and makeup.) Truth be told, there is one big cut I could make that would easily take me to the 15-pound goal, but I am not quite ready to do that.

I'm hoping to travel light in other ways, as well. I will be intentional about letting go of some of the habits that have weighed me down for years. I've been praying burdens into the stone that I plan to leave at Cruz de Ferro. Traditionally, pilgrims carry a stone from home that the leave at the foot of the cross there, symbolizing burdens they've left behind. My little stone weighs just 0.2 ounces (if it's in the backpack, it's been weighed) but I think the burdens it represents are far heavier.