SUFFICIENCY IS A GROOVY BLUE BAG
I’m heading to Europe soon (September 2007), and I’m taking what my girlfriend, Lynda Graham (who owns and runs Sutton's Gîte Vert Le Mont B&B) calls my “groovy blue bag.” It’s a travel pack I bought last November before our trip to Argentina. I used it again in April when we went to Mexico. It’s a simple affair, largely two compartments, but with straps that stow away so that the protrusions and pinchy bits of airport conveyors can’t find them. I can wear it as a backpack or carry it like I would a suitcase. It’s comes apart into two packs, a 20-litre zip-on day-pack (doubling as a carry-on bag), and a 49-litre main pack. That’s 69 litres, a medium sized pack. I bought it in the belief that it should be enough space for the frugal traveler, and so far it has been sufficient to carry my stuff for three-week trips. But now I’m going away for a while. In fact, I bought a one-way ticket, so I can’t even say how long I’ll be away. But I still intend to live out of my “groovy blue bag.” I think it is sufficient.
So what is sufficiency anyway? Is it “just enough” to get by, or does it mean “comfortably adequate”? It’s “just enough,” you say. Everyone knows that. And surely, when I’m packing it, my “groovy blue bag” does seem limiting. It’s too damn small, and I have to make choices. I might have to do without something. I might even have to buy something new, one thing that does the job of two. When it finally all fits, it does seem sufficient in the “just enough” sense. How could it be otherwise?
Here’s how. My experience has been two fold. First, through repeated packings, I learn to fit it all in better and better. I become a more effective packer, and so each day the same stuff takes less space, cinches down further, and the pack doesn’t look full anymore. Then there is the book I finish and leave at a hostel, or the cold snap that has me wearing more of my clothes at once. Both actions offer up a little more space. Suddenly my “groovy blue bag” seems comfortably adequate, plenty of space.
Secondly, there is always stuff you take along that you don’t wear, stuff you could have easily left at home. Not the rain gear, of course, because you actually hope that you brought that along for nothing. No, I mean the shirt that only goes with one of your pairs of pants, or that makes you look too much like the foreigner that you are but hoped not to seem. You’re aware that if only you hadn’t brought this or that you could snug it all down even closer to your back. Suddenly you feel over-packed, well beyond “just enough” sufficiency.
The upshot of all this is that less is actually more. Each time you pick it up or put it on, your pack remarks on your choices, and how closely to “just enough” sufficiency you came. The lighter the pack, the more flexibility you have, and the more fun traveling is. The more easily you can keep track of your stuff, the more your stuff won’t run the trip.
I will probably never get to all the places to which Lynda has been, but I may just get to a few she hasn’t. And all the while I will endeavor to pack in a way to maximize flexibility, and thus fun. I suspect there’s a metaphor for life buried in there somewhere, but I’d have to unpack it to find it. See you in December!
Jay Sames