Baggage

Baggage is a loaded term.  The nicer word is luggage which despite what's at the core of it, that short rough root, lug, is a word polite enough to pretend when we use it we're just talking about travel.  Baggage tells it like it is, suggests we've got things that need to be handled.  Beyond it's literal meaning, there's the psychological implications of the things we carry around with us, some of what we need, and much we don't.

Not all of us have luggage, but all of us have baggage.  I realize this as I pack for this trip so far out of my comfort zone that I can hardly imagine it, to what will be my new life.  When I traveled to Santa Barbara, or flew to Alaska, my usual trips, coming from Sacramento and returning there, I knew who I was, knew that woman's life, and so packed carelessly knowing that I'd never be gone for long and knowing exactly what I'd return to.  This time, when I return to Sacramento, it will be more as a visitor than as a resident, my time left here short, my foot already out the door.  What I take with me this trip and what I leave on the boat for the life I'm sailing into, well, that requires careful consideration.  I can't have my closet full of clothes, nor do I want to.  The task then becomes culling, sifting, the dilemma, what to keep and what to leave behind.

Now ordinarily, on a typical vacation, I'd fuss and worry over how much to take, what comes and what gets left behind.  I'd winnow things into as few bags as possible, bags as small as I could get them.  I'd make sure everything was essential, hard enough when you know you're coming back, when decisions aren't so final.  What I take with me this trip holds profound meaning, for what will stay on the boat will be what I need for that life and not everything i have will fit and not everything I have belongs.  Packing this time becomes an act of discernment in a way it's never been before.  This is not just a week trip, but a life.  This is not who I was, but who I'm becoming, who I will be.

Now lightening doesn't bother me.  After my heart attack, letting go and lightening up became an obsession of mine.  I felt weighed down by all the things I had surrounded myself with.  And I lightened some, but to be honest, after a while the things wore me down and I found it easier to let them stay.  It all seemed rather pointless to let go of so much and yet find myself where I was, where I thought I would always be.  There was resolution and resolve in that thought, but little joy, and I wondered sometimes if what my husband had said about me through the years, that I couldn't be happy, was true.  I had these pictures that said no, happy was possible.  I had these moments of such profound joy, but moments only.  Could I be happy though, day in and day out?  Could I greet every day with a "yes, yes, yes," taking life by the hand and co-creating with it, something marvelous and magical and full of joy?

With this trip, I'm betting against the house and the naysayers with a resounding "yes!"  I'm saying more than the pursuit of happiness, joy is my birthright.  I'm not quite the Fool of the Tarot, stepping off the cliff, oblivious to the chasm below, his knapsack over his shoulder, a dog, symbol of domestic life nipping at his heels.  No, I see the chasm.  I know what could be.  My knapsack is overstuffed, not a steamer trunk but damn heavy.  And despite all this, I'm taking the leap, not because I'm desperate, or mad with love, although I am deeply and peacefully in love, which is a new and wonderful state for me.  No, I'm leaping because it's time and it's right and if I don't say yes to life and living, then life certainly won't say yes to me.  I want to live.  For the first time since my heart attack, my body and heart agree - life is beautiful and I want as much of it as is my lot.

Which leads me back to baggage.  Of course, for all my good intentions, I'm still taking too much this trip.  And I could beat myself up over it, or I can do what I am doing, allowing myself to take everything I've packed and to evaluate it there, after a taste of that new life, and decide then whether to keep it or let go.  I'll bring it back and after a while, pack it again or give it away.  Discernment, I am learning, can occur over time.  This is new for me, this waiting and seeing, this enduring to and through.  There's no particular right or wrong, no mistake that can't be rectified, or rather, given the enormity of what I'm doing, what clothes I pack and what I store, what treasures I take and what I leave behind matters very little.  Somewhere, somehow, in the last ten years, I've gained some perspective, and while I still have baggage, it's not as much as I once had, and it's not as heavy as it once was, and that's how I measure progress now, in relative terms which seems a good place to be when you begin an Odyssey.