Backpacking

Back in the early 90's when I was in my early twenties I bought an 'around the world' ticket and went travelling.

"About to take flight. Seat belts buckled!'

I didn't actually make it all the way 'around'...I flew from North America to Europe to Asia to Australia-- back to Africa to Europe and to North America, so I only really bounced across the globe like a boomerang, out and back.

My early twenties was an antsy time. I wanted adventure; I couldn't handle school. I dropped out of university and moved back in with my parents, who were surprisingly very supportive of their twenty-year old returning to the fold, though I realize now I was cramping their style, as they'd just got used to me being gone. They kindly offered me room and board for free, which I also realize now I took for granted as par for the course--I have since apologized for my rather obnoxious sense of entitlement.

With room and board covered, I could work and put all the money away in my 'travel fund'. I got a job in a clothing store at the local mall and I managed to put away enough for a year's worth of round the world travel.

"These will all fit in my backpack, I'm sure of it."

This was pre-internet and I had to do my research the old fashioned way, by looking it up in guidebooks--books with heft that you had to carry around in your backpack. They were well worth the weight.

Backpacking is great for living the simple life. You constantly need to evaluate: do I need this? Is it worth lugging around?

You are constantly sloughing off.

"Singapore, 1992: maybe someone,
somewhere is reading those letters and
sighing at the vagaries of young love"

I once tossed a stack of love letters in a garbage bin in a stairwell in a hostel in Singapore. I'd broken up with their writer over long distance telephone a few weeks ago in Australia. Why keep the letters around? They were taking up space.

I still recall the satisfying thunk as they landed in the can--and the moment of hesitation as I started down the stairwell afterwards, ready to leave the country.  Should I go back for them? I wondered. Maybe I'd want to read them over again one day, in my old age. Should I be so cavalier about the affairs of the heart? What if someone else found them and read them over?

It was a toss up between the stack of letters and gaining more space--which meant maybe I could get some new books to read.

I gave up the letters and chose the books.

"Definition of Happy Place"

One of my favourite things to do in a new city was find a (preferably used) book store and load up on cheap, good reads. Or maybe I might pick something up in a youth hostel, as people were always leaving books behind. Or trading. I can remember the whole bartering gig: do you want this? Books were always passing hands and going on their own little adventures about the world.

I still have a collection of Jane Austen's three stories (Emma, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey) that I picked up somewhere. It's the size of a shoe box, a complete space-hoarder--but it stuck with my backpack and I for quite awhile, and when I finally had to get rid of it in the interest of space, I paid to ship it home. I was that attached to it.

One look into a backpacker's kit and you will realize what is closest to their heart, what they value and what they need. Everything else is non essential.

Not a bad way to live, really.

Makes me wonder what's in my back pack right now: I mean, metaphorically. What do I really need?