Gratitude Practice 2024 Feb 20: Life’s Tote Bags
A few months ago, I saw a meme floating around the interwebs that made me snicker. Using great graphics and clever words it said something like…Are you even a middle aged woman if you don't have a tote bag full of other tote bags stuffed somewhere in your home? Doh! Well, yes…yes I do. What is it with the tote bags? I just love them. Even as I have a healthy and maybe even embarrassing collection, I still find myself drawn to them with a compelling magnetism. Pretty interested in most shapes and sizes which is largely the problem. Must resist the urge to acquire more. Must remember the at home bag of bags…resistance is almost futile…
By far one of my best purchases year to date occurred during the college years as I was preparing for a trip across the pond with some trusted girlfriends. I wanted something with expanding capacity. I searched for something sturdy but comfortable, well designed and practical and of course the pocket configuration required considerable consideration. Tote bag perfection was achieved in the form of a black and gray Mountain Smith backpack complete with bold yet tasteful yellow zipper pulls. It was love at first sight and even as it exceeded my intended budget I convinced myself that this investment piece would pay off in the long run. And more than two decades later with multiple continental and international trips and two college degrees earned and endless road trips and field trips and day trips this budget breaking purchase was clearly a wise investment. I've carried this trusty backpack consistently for over twenty years and it remains my most functional, most used and a most trusted traveling companion.
Years ago, I foolishly selected a much more fashionable but far less functional bag leaving my Mountain Smith backpack at home…big mistake. I was heading to NYC for a few days and wanted something a little more fancy. The poorly designed tote I had selected actually disintegrated just outside the TSA check, spilling my required necessities all over the shiny tile airport floor. We didn't even make it to the airplane before I knew I had made a grave mistake. This humiliating, frustrating and memorable experience was absolute tote bag betrayal and the crappy bag was quickly pitched in an airport trash bin. With limited options, a ticking clock and sheer desperation I was required to purchase a tacky bedazzled “I love Dallas!!!!” canvas tote which was NOT the big apple vibe I was hoping for. This level of tote bag betrayal stays with a person.
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of capacity lately. How much “stuff” can one person actually hold at any given time? What amount is reasonable and expected and what amount is down right bonkers? How much “stuff” can actually be crammed into a person's life experience…and does the capacity increase with the content? What “life stuff” is actually needed to move a person or a project or an experience from point A to point B? And is my current capacity sufficient to hold not just all of the life stuff…but all of me together as well.
What is really needed and what's just extra? What should you take with you but always seem to forget no matter the amount of planning? And no matter how well you pack or organize how does one acquire the inevitable tote bag detritus…every single time…the long forgotten half stick of gum that bounces at the bottom…the tattered post-note with random numbers that now hold no meaning…the crumpled receipt…the expected bobby pin, hair tie and half used chapstick…the unwrapped cough drop…the random plastic kid toy. How? Why? Growing more curious about the random life bits that tend to bounce around and collect at the base of life's big tote bags. Seems like the more I experience, the more critical my actual and metaphysical capacity and carrying ability becomes…. because nobody wants to carry their life junk in a glittery poorly designed “I love Dallas!!” tote bag as the forge into the fray.
Grateful for my extensive bag of bags collection…because you just never know and a girl always wants options. Grateful for my trusty Mountain Smith backpack…clearly a benchmark standard one of the best investments year to date. And becoming more grateful for the metaphysical life tote bag that has and is becoming personally customized especially for me. It appears there are some surprising new compartments for personal growth and development recently presenting themselves. Grateful for life experiences and adventures which are helping me remember and rally around prior successful, albeit challenging, adventures…many of them experienced with the Mountain Smith backpack securely attached. Grateful that life is inevitably helping me sift and sort and identify what is most critical and what life detritus is no longer needed. Becoming grateful for an unwanted expanding capacity to hold way more life details and life garbage than I ever expected or hoped for. Grateful for the trusted items and practices, for the treasured people and for the faith fueled beliefs that I'm carefully and strategically tucking into both the known and new to me sacred zippered pockets of what is most certainly becoming a Mountain Smith worthy life tote.