Dispatch is a series of first-person stories from the road.
We fill them with clothes and all sorts of stuff, but what suitcases really carry are our emotions. We discard and replace our bags but the emotions they foster lie deep, ready for retrieval in old age.
I can still remember my first one. It wasn't even a suitcase. It was a steamer trunk, metal and big and royal blue with brass corners to protect it during its voyage. I packed it full with the necessities of youth — T-shirts, jeans, running shoes and sweatshirts. It took me to summer camp and to university. It spoke to me of pioneering exploits. It held my dreams of independence.
My first real suitcase was a hard-sided Samsonite made of synthetic material that would bounce back when bashed. I bought it for my first job overseas. I filled it with suits and ties and dress shirts and smartish casual clothes – and jeans just in case. It harboured visions of a new life with Millie and the adventure and success so surely awaiting me. It was far too small to contain my ambition and nowhere near big enough to hold our love. I took it on the plane. When the steamer trunk arrived by sea we used it for a coffee table. Every morning, lattes in hand, we huddled together in front of it, sipping as slowly as we could.
In time we graduated to soft-sided monsters that bulged in beer-belly fashion. They were like overburdened donkeys, loaded up with the things unavailable at our next destination. Their packing and unpacking were our hellos and goodbyes to one country after another.
We got into the rhythm. Goodbye revolution, hello smiles. Goodbye "futebol beleza," hello naked striving. Goodbye conformity, welcome home. These cloth beasts of burden ushered us into the embrace of strangers open to the world and to closing cultural divides (or not). They shared our trepidations and then gratitude. Before the world irretrievably shrank, they made possible small epiphanies unavailable to most: the surprise of ice-cold sake served in salt-rimmed glasses of wood; the grace and quiet of empty mosques; the mystery of waves awash in jasmine blossoms, offerings made to placate the gods; the wonder of parchment lanterns floating in midnight air, glowing like fireflies in the northern sky; the blessing of flowers in markets ablaze in colour, brighter than any Shadbolt painting, cheaper than a cup of coffee.
Suit bags replaced my steadfast long-suffering soft-sider. They were all business and hurry. Off that plane, hail that cab. Check in, try to sleep. Close that deal, get back home. Dance to the tune, pay the piper. Achieve, achieve. Look in your heart, park your feelings. Fire some people, fire some more. Pressure, pressure. Get a life.
We don't move houses any more and we cross fewer borders. It's a stripped-down life we lead – freed of ambition, hazardous enterprises and the demands of middle age. We still travel, mostly to the sun and to be with friends. We pack just enough for a few weeks and bless the wheels on our rolling bags. Our suitcases are smaller now, sized for the shared epiphanies still to come.
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