hibernation
The fact is.
Life is luggage. And we haul it with us everywhere we go. We are stuck like Ginger Rogers, calling for a porter to help us with our belongings.
Our lives are littered with real-life manifestations of this reality. In each of our "big moves" (to Toronto, to St. John's, back to Manitoba, to Mexico, and finally back home to Manitoba), our little colt was filled to the brim. Every last thing that we couldn't trust to the moving truck or the shipping company or a basement was piled carefully in to the hatch until 90% of the air inside had been displaced, and the distance from the street to the rear bumper had been cut in half. The front seats were slid forward so that our legs had no room to stretch - but we could fit more in the back that way. There were hats on top of the gear shifter, snacks under the seat, pillows squished behind the head-rests. And we couldn't stop anywhere for any length of time: there were too many things that defined us crammed into our traveling home. To lose those would be to seemingly lose ourselves.
I've been thinking about how these travels are a perfect metaphor for a way we can live our entire lives. Our inner spiritual hatchback can become crammed with all the ephemeral stuff that we think defines us. Memberships in various circles of community, employment, academia, creativity, faith, and personal interests become the indispensable, never-to-be-neglected evidence that we are something. We are the things that we are.
So what are we to do about all of this? To get back to the physical hatchback again, we defined our road trips by the luggage we were carrying. We packed all of it in because we thought we needed it. But in reality, our trips were better defined by our origin and destination. We could have moved to Toronto, St. John's, Manitoba, Mexico, with nothing but a single backpack and a train ticket. Everything we had packed in the car was in fact non-essential. In just the same way, our life's luggage is also non-essential. I could quit my job, and the work would go on. I could quit playing guitar, and there would still be music. But there is, somehow, a nugget of something inside that is essential to "me". And it is THAT essential something that makes us who we are. And I will give up on the metaphor right now before it becomes completely threadbare and trivial.
S.
Life is luggage. And we haul it with us everywhere we go. We are stuck like Ginger Rogers, calling for a porter to help us with our belongings.
Our lives are littered with real-life manifestations of this reality. In each of our "big moves" (to Toronto, to St. John's, back to Manitoba, to Mexico, and finally back home to Manitoba), our little colt was filled to the brim. Every last thing that we couldn't trust to the moving truck or the shipping company or a basement was piled carefully in to the hatch until 90% of the air inside had been displaced, and the distance from the street to the rear bumper had been cut in half. The front seats were slid forward so that our legs had no room to stretch - but we could fit more in the back that way. There were hats on top of the gear shifter, snacks under the seat, pillows squished behind the head-rests. And we couldn't stop anywhere for any length of time: there were too many things that defined us crammed into our traveling home. To lose those would be to seemingly lose ourselves.
I've been thinking about how these travels are a perfect metaphor for a way we can live our entire lives. Our inner spiritual hatchback can become crammed with all the ephemeral stuff that we think defines us. Memberships in various circles of community, employment, academia, creativity, faith, and personal interests become the indispensable, never-to-be-neglected evidence that we are something. We are the things that we are.
So what are we to do about all of this? To get back to the physical hatchback again, we defined our road trips by the luggage we were carrying. We packed all of it in because we thought we needed it. But in reality, our trips were better defined by our origin and destination. We could have moved to Toronto, St. John's, Manitoba, Mexico, with nothing but a single backpack and a train ticket. Everything we had packed in the car was in fact non-essential. In just the same way, our life's luggage is also non-essential. I could quit my job, and the work would go on. I could quit playing guitar, and there would still be music. But there is, somehow, a nugget of something inside that is essential to "me". And it is THAT essential something that makes us who we are. And I will give up on the metaphor right now before it becomes completely threadbare and trivial.
S.
posted by the land at 5:48 PM
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