Suitcase Diaries

 

Il est minuit à Tokyo, il est cinq heures au Mali
Quelle heure est-il au paradis?

 

A couple of days ago, a decent chunk of a city was glued to their screens as their affiliated team produced a classic comeback to win a playoff game. The fifth of sixteen they will want to claim top spot in North America’s premier ice hockey league, for the time being.

I had wanted to join them but found myself exhausted. Falling asleep on the couch, I relented and headed to bed, only for my envisioned nap to turn into a night-long sleep. My energy levels can be an issue when I am away from my regular abode and routines, as I have been for the past two weeks. A combination of interrupted sleep, more arduous daily excursions, and social exuberance needed during times of increased movement.

– / – / –

Last calendar year, I spent just over four months away from my apartment. (I refuse to call it my ‘home’; that designation has not yet been earned.) Living out of a few bags and transporting myself from location to location, mostly for work and a little on vacation. This year and only ten days into May, I have already racked up over two months in the same situation. Transience has been a regular theme of my life for the past eight orbits. A voluntary one, for the most part – I have enjoyed going to every corner of BC and witnessing transformative projects in person.

No complaints on my chosen path. But I was reflecting on the transitory life; a microcosm of our long existence.

Aside from the occasional fatigue, there are other signs that follow a person around, betraying the fact that their closet may be a suitcase. The wrinkled clothing, consistently folded or rolled into tiny spaces. I hardly have a nice shirt that can keep its shape. The finite, rotating outfits, cycled through in practiced combinations. The travel-sized essentials scattered about in easily accessible pockets. The darkened skin under the eyes, a dead giveaway of any unstable timetable. The flexibility in schedule as one is able to self-propel or be dragged to different places with extremely short notice. The lack of anxiety around uprooting everything as what is important is kept close.

I am a young flâneur without too many attachments, so this is a desirable state. There are instances where I look to the future and think about becoming a homebody. A time when I will emphasize exploration through books and films, using more imagination than transportation to find fulfillment. Perhaps an inevitable destination, but an unwelcome one at the current moment.

– / – / –

Many people like to romanticize travel as a freedom-giving, educative enterprise that serves as the height of self-efficacy. We are not referring here to touristy jaunts but paths less taken. Discovered through thickets away from advertised meccas and bazaars. While that filtered view carries insight, regular travel demands a heavy toll. Its personal resource requirements – financial clout, mobility, leisure, and passport power – denotative of limitations imposed on most. Its resource-heavy inputs – vehicles, servers, entire supply chains undergirding each adventure – constant pressures on our ever-degrading environment. Travel in its modern form is a delicious entrée that nonetheless contributes to collective, cancerous undertakings.

I firmly believe exposure to unfamiliar experiences and alternate ways of being, whether found a few blocks or borders away, is necessary. I also find it difficult to reconcile this need with the erosive systems that provide routes to journeying the planet in quick time.

It does make it easier to know that this setup is not in any way unique. Most human movement and industry requires reworking to be more sustainable. Our respect for our habitat – ourselves – is at crisis levels.

How we carry our luggage forwards will determine not only what we have left to explore, but who is left to explore it.

– / – / –

Two days on, and the Canucks are back on the ice. Vancouver fervently observes again, binding their emotions to the team’s fortunes. It is currently 3-2 for the ‘home’ team heading into the third period. This detached, neutral viewer will catch the end of the game this time.

At least at this juncture, the suitcase sits open within a welcoming, familiar dwelling.