Saturday, February 16, 2013

Saturday Night West Coast Re-Post

It's time to dig into the old posts and pull one out. I'm especially fond of this one and admit to periodically yearning to pack it up and go. Where would you go and what would you take?




WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011

Go Bag


I have a very good friend who has what he calls a "go bag," a large backpack filled with all the items he deems necessary should he ever want to pick up and just go. Granted, he's single and middle-aged, unencumbered by small children, a spouse, family that lives nearby -- and the expression is one part fantasy and three parts how to stay sane when you're approaching the age of fifty and perhaps a little closer than you might imagine toward being utterly bored at your work and desirous of something different. For all my talk of living in the moment, and being grateful for what I have, etc. etc., I, too, fantasize about living a different life, starting over, picking up and going. Naturally, I don't wish to abandon my children but there's a frisson to be had imagining the release of all one's cares and possessions, hitting the open road, waking up to a truly different day. As I drive around Los Angeles, a city that I definitely love, as I stop at the post office to mail the catalog return, as I turn up the radio to drown out Sophie's constant humming, as I turn off the radio to better hear where the siren is coming from, as I watch my boys tumble out of the car and into the parking lot and on to sports camp, as I pull up my driveway, get Sophie out, bend down and pick up the circulars that litter the path to the house, step over the errant cleats and into the house -- well -- I imagine what might be in my go bag beyond the basic living necessities.

I'd bring a copy of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, I think, and a copy of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, maybe The Collected Poetry of William Butler Yeats and something by William Carlos Williams -- Asphodel, that Greeny Flower -- but then there's Emily Dickinson and William Blake, Toni Morrison, Michael Ondaatje -- my go bag would be too heavy -- and anyway, where would I go?

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, via Gratefulness.org

7 comments:

  1. Elizabeth,
    If this is really a fantasy, all you really need is a credit card. And maybe a really nice sandwich to take on the plane. And some chocolate for your purse. I live in Washington, DC. Come escape!
    Paula

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  2. I don't know why but this made me cry. What would I take? Louisa May Alcott. A grandson. Pillows.
    My bedside fan for the hot flash moments.
    Oh, Lord. I know know.
    But I love you, honey. I do.

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  3. When I was 6 years old I ran away with a pillow and a box of King Vitamin. I still think that's about all you need for a grand adventure.

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  4. I would definitely take my mp3 player but I would need a PC or laptop to plug it into, so I would need a personal computer, too. That means that I would require electricity to either charge the laptop or work on my PC. So, electricity, too.

    And access to the internet, of course. That's four things, I've cheated. Sorry. :-)

    Greetings from London.

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  5. Well now I will confess that I too have imagined this moment. All I needed was the contents of the bank account on payday and a passport. Of course a spiral notebook and a Pilot G.2 pen.

    In real life, I have no desire to buy a house and this is why. Renting allows me to believe that I could pick up and move at anytime.

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  6. I've had incredibly lucid dreams while sleeping that I have done just that - up and moved. In my dream I have a small apartment all my own and a world of possibilities before me. I wake up with a deep, intense feeling of freedom.

    It is not a dream that makes me feel sad. Instead, it makes me feel daring.

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  7. I remember this post, I wonder what I replied back then. Today, I'm thinking that I'd go to Istanbul, and bring hubby with me (the honeymoon we never had because, you know, there would be more money and endless time in the future)

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