Baggage

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

lost and found
by Jeneen R. Garcia
published in January 2004


In commemoration of the fourth year anniversary of lost & found, I am posting the eight essays that were published pre-Multiply. As it happens, these essays are also among my favorites so far :) When I wrote this one, I was already starting to get stuck on what to write about for my new column. I wrote this with a dry taste in my mouth, but surprisingly this third piece was the one that got very positive responses. Which just shows that even if you don't have the heart for what you're doing, you can still bluff your way through it hehe.



I had prided myself on being a light traveler, always with the smallest bag. Then one night I found myself sitting on the floor of JFK Airport in New York in the midst of five “small” bags and an extra-large shopping bag, desperately repacking and re-repacking my handcarried luggage up until forty minutes before my flight.

In that crazy moment I finally realized what father, brother, boyfriend had been telling me for years—in my attempt to keep things small and light, I ended up always splitting what would have been one big, compact bag into several pieces that kept my hands too full.

***
Even starting out with good intentions (keeping things down to a backpack plus my camera bag, for example), I ALWAYS make the return trip with an extra something in one hand or two. Usually, the added weight comes from tangible memories: native delicacies, souvenir crafts, pretty rocks, rolls of film…. Sometimes it comes from internal baggage, the kind that’s hard to carry.

Long after transit, I still bear the weight. They’re memories, too, but of the less pleasant things, less tangible but strangely heavier and hard-wearing. They keep my head and my heart full, leaving me at a loss on how to handle anything else. It’s the guilt, resentment and regret I insist on bringing from the last year to the new one, this journey to the next, all the shoulda-woulda-coulda done’s that I never did.

***
Often, the only cure for the strain from a recent trip is another trip, a “vacation from the vacation”. But because the Earth is an oblate spheroid, we can only go so far. Soon enough we’re back where we started.

I suppose that’s why, after traveling, I retreat into a secluded place (real or inside my head), and have a talk with my journal. Writing is the only trip I make where I actually shed off the baggage little by little as I go deeper into the country of myself. And I can explore as far as I want without having to come back to where I began. For other people, the journey is through painting, music or dance. I guess the way in doesn’t matter; it’s the letting go that counts.

***

I still long for the day when I get off a plane and not have to carry anything, inside or out. Once my mother and I actually lost our baggage as we transferred between airports. We arrived at our destination with nothing but our handbags, as if we were simply residents who had gone out for a drive.

***

Sure, losing our excess baggage can be a real inconvenience. But then again, what traveler in his deepest heart wants to be bogged down by so much stuff? The lightest traveler, stripped down to his most essential, is still the most mobile.

***

Some things are better off lost than found.