Backpack

I have this backpack. It’s a Marmot; blue and gray with a little bit of yellow trim. I bought it right before I left for Scotland in 2003. That backpack has been all over the globe with me. It’s not very big but I’ve found I can easily live out of it for a month at a time. I love pulling that backpack out of the closet. I’ve said many times that I know when I pull it out good things are going to happen. Some of my best memories have occurred with that pack on my back; or at least in the car.

Tonight I watched “Up in the Air” (Don’t worry, no spoilers. I HATE!!!! when movies are ruined). George Clooney travels all around firing people. He also attends conferences and gives “Challenge” addresses. His talks are based upon the belief that the people and things in our lives fill up our backpacks and weigh us down to the point that we can no longer be effective. I started to think about my backpack and all the adventures we’ve had. We’ve been across the UK from Orkney to Deal. We’ve slept in Parisian hotels with crazy plumbing in the corner and accepted rides from strange men in Brussels. We’ve traveled the Alcan and the Inside Passage. There have been trips to Rocky Mountain National Park and Buffalo Creek. Treks to Homer and Ninilchik, Denali and Talkeetna, Otter Cove and Seward. I’ve trekked across the Great Smokies and sat by a lake in Georgia. I’ve hiked, camped, dip-netted, clammed, caught trout, caught salmon, caught halibut, and caught absolutely nothing. I’ve driven for days, almost hitting a wolf. I’ve sat on a ferry watching whales and dolphins and almost missed the same ferry because I got too busy seeing Ketchikan. I’ve almost run out of gas in the middle-of-nowhere Montana. I’ve been stuck in crazy thunderstorms and behind overturned semi’s and through all of this, my backpack has been with me.

But I realized tonight that it isn’t so much the backpack that’s been with me. It’s all the people that I’ve picked up along the way. Every trip I took included one of you. A gross Parisian hotel would have been just gross without a sister to laugh about it with and catching nothing in Seward would have been a waste of time without a few good-natured friends and their screaming baby to share the ride home. Being stung by a jellyfish in the Baltic Sea would have been just painful without meatballs and potato salad to follow and Pimms all alone is just depressing.

So, he’s right. A full backpack digs into your shoulders. It creates extra weight and makes you work hard. But the added work also develops a strong heart. So instead of emptying my pack I’m gonna keep filling it. Thanks for traveling the road with me.