As I pulled out my suitcase yesterday and began to fill it for my upcoming travel to Kenya on Saturday, I thought about all the places we have been together. Together, we have made five trips to four countries in four years. It’s safe to say I’m in love with my suitcase. Not only is my suitcase physically wonderful (and by that I mean it magically always fits everything I need, no matter how long the trip or how far the distance, and that it has sturdily withstood my abuse and lack of coordination when hauling luggage), but more than that, it holds such memories that are significant to my life and self. When I look at my suitcase (nicknamed Baby Blue, Big Blue, luggage love, sweet suitcase, and a few other catchy christenings), I see the journeys, the voyages, the adventures, the discoveries, the miles that brought me to where I am today.
An ode to my suitcase, in miles calculated, in pictures, in words:
0
0 = the number of miles my dear suitcase and I traveled together on my first trip to Kenya in 2009. Unfortunately, we had yet to officially start our relationship, but he was traveling with my sister who was traveling with me, so it counts.
In 2009, I said this:
“I need to stay in Kenya. I need to be here and take more in and continue to be around the awesomeness of Kenya, Kenyans, and Kenyan culture. Otherwise, if I am not here, I worry that I will forget. And I can’t forget, for that thought scares me more than anything else.”
8390 + 8390 + 8373 + 8373 + 7429 + 3218 + 282 + 31 + 31 + 282 + 4211 = 49,010
49,010: the number of miles (give or take a few driving to and from the Indianapolis airport, being dragged through red mud all over Kenya, being hauled up winding steps in Dakar, being lugged onto trains and tubes in England, being shoved through metro stations in Paris, being my foot rest for one long, twelve-hour night in Charles de Gaulle airport, being wheeled through customs line after customs line, being trolleyed around on baggage claim after baggage claim) I have traveled to date with this royal blue luggage love of mine.
2010
In 2010, I said this:
“Here we are, again, leaving behind this comfort. Before we left, I contemplated and wrote about the length of this trip – how the longevity would be good because I could go home knowing the culture and feeling the trip was complete. But now, as we say goodbye again, I’m wondering if there really is any right time to say goodbye.”
2012
In 2012, I said this:
“The physical, 30-hour journey begins tomorrow, but my journey in Kenya began three years ago and is forever continuous. As someone who knows me well said: “This is just like going to your home away from home.”
“After a year and a half of missing Kenya more than I have missed anything in my life, I am back in this wonderful place. I hardly have words for the joy I feel to be back amidst my Kenyan family and friends and to be in this country that I love. I have slipped back into life in Kenya in such a seamlessness that proves the warmth of Kenya’s embrace and my comfort in accepting its arms.”
2013
In 2013, I said this:
“But the experiences are not the same. They are not that different, either. Both are on my path. Because of that, both are a part of me. I’m learning that it’s okay and a good thing to hold and to love both places. There’s so much love that goes into shaping one’s self as these places have and will. Maybe Sénégal will not become such a place of significance for me as Kenya has. Maybe it will.”
“I’d never though of my constant ache for Kenya as being home sick until now.”
2014
In 2014, I said this:
“Senegal, my six months with you have felt both incredibly short and incredibly long and yet all the same, they are coming to an end. Senegal, you have given me some of the most challenging and most joyous, most magical and most fascinatingly ordinary times of my twenty years on this earth to date. Senegal, you have given me a lot, mostly in ways you had no idea you were giving and in forms quite intangible, but above all, Senegal, you have given me a sense of thankfulness and a desire to approach each day in gratitude.”
In 2014, I said this:
“This has been such a week of life. Of wandering, exploration, discovery, stumbling upon, opening eyes, taking chances and saying ‘yes’, pushing through, thinking and reflecting, opening one’s eyes and self to possibility, being willing to be dazzled. Running through fields, chasing sheep, climbing trees, skipping, trespassing, mud jumping, walking and walking and walking, gazing at the sun, feeling the sun on my skin – this is being full, being alive.
I continue to journey so far, to grow and to learn so much. I continue to thirst for discovery, adventure, connection. This life is messy and difficult and also so damn miraculous and gorgeous. These past six months, have taught me how to live it. And how to just embrace and say ‘thank you’ every single step of the way.”
49,010 + 8433 = 57443
57,443: the number of miles (again, give or take a few) I will have traveled with my beloved on Sunday night, when I am once more on Kenya’s glorious red soil.
Today, I say this:
I am about to take off on my first entirely independent venture: two months in Kenya working in and doing research on institutionalized care settings for ill and dying children, something that, when I explain it, others describe as “intense”, “heavy”, “difficult”, “a downer”, “tough stuff”, “no easy thing”.
And as I think about leaving in some 40 odd hours, there are moments of nervousness and panic and doubt. Though I know people in each setting I will work and this will be my fourth time in Kenya and in many ways I feel I’m going home, this is all new. I have always had a travel companion and I’ve never gone with an agenda which extends beyond simply being present to others and this will be the first time I’ve worked exclusively with ill and dying children for such an extended period of time. And it is intense, and heavy, and difficult, and a downer, and tough stuff, and no easy thing, but I look at my suitcase, and I think: all of our time together has led me to this.
These many thousands of miles, these countries traveled, these paths traversed, they have made me. And they have made me in a way which assures me I am ready, which assures me I am capable of journeying these next miles not in fear or in doubt or in nervousness, but in compassion, in joy, in recognition and gratitude of the miles that have come before, the miles that have led me here.
It’s time for Big Blue, Baby Blue, suitcase sweetheart, luggage love, and I to set off on our next adventure.
57, 443 + 8390 = 65, 833
65, 833: the number of miles (ballpark estimation) I will have traveled with sweet baby blue on August 18, when I return from Kenya, better, challenged, stronger, continuing on my journey.
(A special thank you to my sister, Caroline, for letting me use/steal her/my suitcase in 2010 and having yet to steal it back. We’re in love now, and it would kill me if you tried to take him back. And also I can’t afford my own right now, so please don’t.)
callie daniels-howell 