a girl and her baggage

I’ve always played this little game with myself, of leaving something in my suitcase from each trip for the next time.

I always forget I do it, so each time I go somewhere I have this delightful little surprise tied to a memory. Sometimes it’s a bad idea, since packing for a trip is usually a couple hours before departure and it doesn’t take much to distract me, (like oh! a blog post!) but little habits like this are the ribbons and strings that decorate your life and keep it yours and good.

I’m going to Nashville in the morning for a splendid wedding and other good times, returning Monday night for a gorgeous sunrise shoot, leaving the next day for almost two weeks in Scotland, and after a few days home I’ll be gone to Indiana. My room is a 8.3 on the Richter disaster scale and my To Do list almost reaches the back door. I keep reminding myself that a healthy dose of panic is good for the heart but so far I don’t believe it.

But.

Just found a clothing tag in my suitcase from the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama, and the stories behind it made my night.

I was down there a couple weeks ago for a wedding and after all the matrimonial excitement my favorite and best drove up from Florida and life was awesome. After our adventure with a swamp and snapping turtle we spent a couple days driving through some mountains and country towns, took a road past a bridge past that one turn, (you know, by that one tree) and eventually parked on the side of a highway to hike through the woods and a field and more woods until we found a waterfall. We were too scared to jump off since the water was low, but we swam all around it in this perfect secluded quarry and then sat behind it, yelling over the crush and feeling quite happy to be alive.

The next day we found the Unclaimed Baggage Center, it’s like a department-sized thrift store with the contents of every abandoned suitcase up for our perusing. It was kinda weird, (like going thrifting in someone’s closet) but we found heaps of good cheap stuff so my conscience has hushed.

Besides our collection of gloriously unattractive pictures, it was the perfect vacation. But even if it wasn’t, just seeing my bestie was most loved, and now remembering all our good times slays my current stresses.

So I guess that’s why I do this little game.

To remind myself that lists will always need to be written and checked, but it’s still just about the love.

So!

Back to work and on with the party.