An Ode to Luggage

In every volunteer’s home, there is a constant reminder of the day that will eventually arrive. Sometimes it’s incorporated into the living room as furniture, covered with a pretty piece of fabric and passed off as an oddly balanced end table, or shoved into the bottom of the closet and used as a shoe rack, or tucked carefully into a corner, uncovered, but as hidden as possible, such as my own. It carried our lives here, balanced on our backs or tugged along behind us, and it will eventually carry our lives away. It’s the only thing we’re guaranteed to take back with us, in one form or another.
And in my opinion, it’s rather underappreciated. In many cases, even abused. On my first trip abroad, my big red roller bag blindly followed me, its brand new little wheels getting all scraped up and bruised, throughout the streets of London. I was careful at first. I avoided puddles and gently lowered it down any steps, and never tugged at its handle too gruffly. From my window seat before take-off, I looked on in horror as the airport baggage handlers yanked bag after bag from the truck and threw them menacingly through the air and onto the plane’s conveyor belt, where they slammed and crashed into one another, looking broken and sad. As I saw my big red roller bag appear, I turned away and fidgeted with the seat-back tray in front of me, telling myself it was just a suitcase. It couldn’t feel the pain the baggage handlers ruthlessly doled out.
At London Heathrow, my heart caught in my throat in anticipation each time a piece of luggage popped out of the airport bowels and slid onto the baggage claim belt, where onlookers either admired or questioned its owner’s sense of travel style. Where was my bag? A black, oddly shaped trash bag, tied at the top with red rope, slid by, causing several murmurs and raising a few eyebrows, until a man with a tiny boy by his side grabbed the bag, untied it, and unleashed, to the child’s delight, a stroller. The crowd returned its attention to the carousel. Bag after bag plopped onto the conveyer belt, which ran endless laps around and around, showing off its goods.
Soon the crowd had plucked out most of the items, leaving just a few tattered and crumpled unclaimed duffels, and it was clear that baggage claiming for my flight was coming to a close. By this time, my palms were itching and my throat had gone dry at the prospect of spending two weeks in a foreign land with nothing other than my puny, pointless little carryon backpack. Just as the last of the passengers picked up their things to leave, a thud came from within the carousel, causing heads to turn, and seconds later my big red roller bag raised itself up and out of the airport bowels, then it turned casually onto its side and slid gracefully down to the belt. For an almost imperceptible second, the remaining crowd hesitated, drawn by the appearance of such a fine looking bag so late in the claiming game. They looked on in what I believe was envy as I proudly, yet carefully, claimed my big red roller bag.
Such was the beginning of my love for the big red roller bag. A love which has bloomed over the years to produce adventures and wanderings, stories and photographs, experiences and friendships. And today, ten years after that first trip, I find myself worried about the big red roller bag. It has been stuffed well beyond capacity, then thrown ruthlessly to the ground (not by my own hands, of course), or hurriedly dragged down dozens of steps, or yanked up stairs, or sat upon, or left to topple over onto itself (all of which I feel horribly about), and all of that abuse is starting to show. There’s a hole in the seam on the side, the color is no longer bright, the wheels wobble feebly under even the most modest of weight, an audible groan can be heard each time I try to zip it up.
Yet there it sits, patiently in the corner, with neither complaint nor hostility, a friendly presence, waiting till I’m once again ready. Ready to stuff it to the gills, roll it from this room and into a plane and on to whatever is to come next. I know it’s silly to love an object, but I love you, big red roller bag, and I hope you can see me through till the end of what has turned out to be a rather long adventure. After this, you will take an extremely well earned vacation. I promise.