What's In Your Suitcase?
(From 25 years ago...)
Happy New Year team Strawberry! I think I’ve landed on the second Sunday of the month for this monthly newsletter. If that doesn’t end up feeling right and I change it, I will let you know ❤️. I am so grateful every time one of you opens this up and reads my words. Thank you for being here.
There’s a scene in Hot Tub Time Machine (great movie, not up for debate) where the characters, having traveled back in time, open their suitcases from 25 years ago. The suitcases are filled with the things their 25 years younger selves would have traveled with. This scene (along with the whole movie tbh) blew my mind. It really got me thinking about what I would find in my suitcase from 25 years ago, and how the objects that I would have traveled with then somehow completely morphed into the objects that I travel with now, without me even noticing.
I have been thinking about this scene recently as the objects in my house have changed around the holidays. Early in December we did a big cleanout in preparation for the holidays and it left me feeling gutted. As I was deciding what to get rid of I was euphoric - it felt amazing - a cleansing, a clearing of space, an opening created for goodness to roll in. But it left me with a hangover - I had a physical reaction the next day to the realization of all that was gone - the double stroller in which the big kids had their first sibling fight, the then one-year-old throwing her leg repeatedly over the then two-year-old’s legs, him repeatedly throwing it off, the springtime sun shining down on their tiny faces, them falling asleep with their heads resting on each other through the fabric of the Bob. The stroller was completely broken - axles bent, wheels rusted on. But once it was gone I felt its absence like a presence.
In the wake of this cleanout came the holidays and an influx of so many things - gifts galore, too many to count, on every surface of the house. Previously unfamiliar, now enveloped into the fabric of our daily lives. Our son was given a video camera and to watch the day unfold through his eyes is incredible - it is like time travel itself, to both Christmas Day 2024 from our son’s point of view but also to Christmas Day 30 years ago, when I was 10 and completely in awe of every moment of the day. So much of childhood is forgotten, and watching my son walk through the house with his camera, narrating the day by introducing his gifts one by one made me wonder what objects do I actually remember from childhood? And what objects surround me now?
I remember a pair of big silk pink underwear that my dad’s best friend brought over to the house one night as a joke when I was seven (he ran a lingerie factory). He came after it was dark, we opened the front door, and there he was, silly gift in tow. His arms wrapped around us and we laughed so hard that we couldn’t breathe. I remember a “girls” LEGO kit that I received as a gift that I worked on for days on end. There’s definitely a hairbrush I remember, solid and dutiful but a playful pink color. The Dream Phone board game, Mall Madness board game, Babysitter’s Club board game. In retrospect, for someone who cannot sit through Monopoly, the early 90s offered up a lot in this way. There was a drawer full of Lip Smackers and a velvet covered notebook with black pages that I could write on with neon gel pens.
Objects can ground us in time and space. At NYU I took a course where we researched specific objects - I happened to write about the bonnet - specifically the bonnet of 18th century Britain. It was a deep dive into how the bonnets were made, who made them, who wore them - every little detail. I loved this assignment. Never had I felt so dedicated to something concrete - it felt like I was given permission to fully immerse myself in a random yet fascinating topic and it felt like drinking a glass of water when I was thirsty. Something about it was incredibly satisfying.
Over 20 years have passed since I wrote that paper but I have maintained an appreciation for what the objects around us can do to ground us when we really think about them. They can root us to the present in an instant. In a moment of overwhelm, stress, or dysregulation it can be so hard to breathe deeply, wiggle your toes, stretch your fingers. It can be easier to instead turn outside of our body and focus on what’s there. The dishes in the sink - from my wedding, made in Italy, notated on the bottom with our names and wedding date. The blocks on the floor, a Christmas gift to my youngest last year, wooden and as close to a simple toy you can find these days. The cashmere sweater I wear over my PJs, worn many years ago to a birthday dinner where I nursed a mocktail pretending I wasn’t pregnant, now filled with holes so big my elbows stick out of it. It’s similar to something Jennie Odell writes about in How to Do Nothing - the idea of “inattentional blindness” - when we don’t attend to something we literally cannot see it. The opposite of this is also true - when we look right at something and really try to see it, suddenly it has our attention.
So that’s what I hope to do - turn my attention to the literal things around me when times are tough. There is so much suffering right now. It can be hard to say “Eat the Strawberry” but its probably as important as it ever is to try to.
Let me know what objects ground you the most, and I’ll see you in February 😘.
“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. ”
Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World
This made me think of “orienting” - the concept of looking at your surroundings as a way to ground oneself in times of dysregulation. And of course I remember the “girls” lego set. I can almost smell those pink and lavender legos…WOAH.
This is such a beautiful piece of writing, Bridget. How bizarre is it that we're thinking the same thoughts, writing the same thing, with the same cancer? Have you read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert? If not, you should! It's relevant to this! haha
I love the idea of trying to remember objects from our lifetime. I do find it bizarre to think about how these concrete, once much-loved objects are simply no more. Where are they? In landfills? Someone else's house after being bought from the charity shop? It really is a mind-expanding thought experiment!