Here i sit, on what can be called my last business trip. I have always been the practical, long-term traveller with the worn out backpack and simple well tested, practical – sometimes filthy – and ugly clothes. I have been sitting in airports all over the world and watched the “quality”, the businesspeople with their little wheely baggage. I have always enjoyed watching them struggle with wheels in snow, over broken pavements and around airports endless constructions. I would curl up in a corner and snooze. Suspended animation. One of the first things i look for at airports, train stations and ferries, a protected spot. Twining the straps of my pack around a wrist I enter the Zone of barely exsisting. Smelly boots, cotton clothes in layers, scarf over my eyes.
So now. Here i am with my little wheely luggage, impractical, probably not water tight in the snow, wheels too small for the rubble and construction. Stacks of paper. Printouts. Staples. Excel sheets. Ballpoint pens with the names of hotels on them. Cool technology.
On the screens around, stock market news, ties.
i see the ones more like myself and smile. This is where i am, that is where i am going.
To hold two thoughts at the same time.
Lovely piece that. I remember you commenting on my “matching luggage” when you first met my plane. My first touch down into Norway. My first trip ever with rolling bags. Love you kiddo.
it was the odd thing out, that luggage. The sheer matching-ness of it :-D Love you too, your Royal Oddness!
I identify with both of those world. In fact, bought my first wheelie suitcase last year but felt really weird doing it. Hope your trip was a good time and/or successful!
hi danielle – I got wheels last year too, but mine are hybrid backpack & wheely. I am not letting go of snail-life, and was happy about that in the snowdrifts in Chicago. Looking forward to being an eccentric again :-)
Wheelies or no, I’ve always loved air travel and experienced it as qualitatively different than any other kind of travel. Suspended animation, certainly. Suspended identity, maybe.
Of course, when I began flying, it was so new that it still was an “occasion”. Most people dressed for flights as though for church service, or a night at the concert. The stewardesses wore elegant uniforms and passed out hot towels with silver tongs to everyone – backpackers or wheelie class.
Those days are gone forever!
Welcome back to eccentric – it’s not a bad place to live!
Nice piece! I totally relate, the wheelie things I always found somewhat opulent and annoying, and the wheeled kid-karriers for children old enough to be walking absurd…Offensive.. I always carried my son in a backpack and still carry my oddball traveling gear in my own unfashionable camo backpack… My clothes look like I shoppped at a Salvation Army. But I have survived subzero temps in some rather unlikely places, and torential downpours in the Caribbean. And now I know who that cute blond was occupying my secluded corner of the airport waiting area pretending to be asleep:-)
I DO shop at the salvation army :-) but I am not blonde.