4 Days to China: Packing for the Apocalypse [Nov 7, 2019] (Patreon)

“Jen, what do I need to remember to bring to China?”

“A GODDAMN EXTERNAL BATTERY FOR YOUR PHONE, ESS.”

I look down at my phone. 

33%. Guilty as charged. “Okay but what else,” I reply cheekily. 

Jen sighs in exasperation. “Okay, I’m going to make you a list. You should bring a bunch of food that doesn’t spoil and doesn’t upset your stomach; protein can be tough to find that isn’t heavily fried or cooked up in lots and lots of oil – if your stomach is sensitive after travelling that’s going to be the last thing you want to eat.”

“You mean like instant oatmeal packets?” I ask, recalling how difficult it seemed to be to find time to get to the artist cafeteria at Cirque de Demain.

“Yeah, exactly. Protein bars, luna bars, anything you can think of.”

“Okay.”

“DON’T drink the water from the taps. Either boil it twice if you’re getting it from the tap, or buy bottled water. Bring toilet paper with you wherever you go; public ones don’t have any. Download the Google Translate app where you can just take a photo of the text and it translates it. Take a photo of your address in Chinese characters to show cab drivers. You’re going to need a VPN too; China censors Google, Instagram, Gmail, Facebook, everything – “ oh shit, right! “– and print off all the papers that the festival organizer sent you. You might need them at Customs when you arrive in China.”

“Okay! Keep messaging me as you think of stuff… !” I thank Jen and sign off. 

Packing for a contract overseas means more than just thinking of creature comforts and basic necessities. As a contortionist over the age of 22, I’ve started developing a whole bunch of coping mechanisms to address the various ways the tissues of my body seem to want to crimp up and cramp up after extended periods of travel, and coax them back into some kind of form where they’re willing to cooperate with me asking them to let me sit on my own head. 

I have a hollow foam roller, into which I stuff fistfuls of various strengths of therabands, a physio peanut, a lacrosse ball, and usually a fuzzy pair of socks. Soft warm clothes to layer in. Inevitably, at least three different kinds of backwarmers (no reason, just weird like that). A bottle of muscle relaxants for emergency situations where my neck muscles decide to remember that time in 2015 that they got crushed backwards and to the side by a flyer’s body and pushed a vertebrae into a position it really didn’t like (nothing else works, barring the ability to make an emergency trip to my talented and infinitely patient physiotherapist whom I’ve seen for coming up on a decade now, Garnet Santicruz). An electric heating pad that is applied to my body at every available opportunity. And, this trip, I’m donating some precious, precious suitcase space to a couple of yoga blocks in order to facilitate a smoother warm-up and keeping up with my physio / active flexibility drills. 

At least one (if not two) more physio session with the aforementioned body-wizard Garnet Santicruz is also in order. 

With Troy away on a movie contract right up until the day we depart, all the nit-picky minutiae of getting ready for competition is also on my to-do list: 

• I need to make sure I remember to load our music (it was an original composition by the incredible Greg Harrison) onto at least 2 USBs in the inevitable case I am separated from or lose one; 

• I have to pray to the costuming gods that our (once again short notice … how did this happen?) costumes are ready in time for departure on Sunday; 

• BACKUP COSTUMES, ‘CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW (I’m looking at you, Cirque de Demain…); 

• Grab makeup re-fills for myself and Troy, since I’m pretty sure that they don’t have a wide makeup selection in Visby, Gotland (Sweden);

• Endlessly watch our Cirque de Demain performance on a loop as a visualization stand-in for actually getting to physically rehearse with Troy; I’ve got to grab makeup supplies for Troy because I’m pretty sure he won’t have time to go shopping between landing from Sweden, rushing home, changing his bag, and coming back to the airport to fly to China with me. 

Besides hauling my summer clothes back out of my closet, where they’ve begun to gather dust in the ever-colder Toronto fall, and cobbling together some kind of ‘nice’ outfit to cram into what I’m sure will be a maxed out suitcase for fancy dinners or gala things, that about covers it. 

I’ve got four more days of my own for training and slowly moving my body through the shapes of our choreography. 

And four days to try to get into the habit of actually bringing the external battery with me when I leave the house, lest Jen have a heart attack.