Back in the late 60’s there was a TV series in the UK called “Man in a Suitcase” in which a the main character lived out of a suitcase as he travelled about as a freelance detective. The title of the series came to mind today as I considered my own journey over the past 12 months: “Man in a suitcase” is quite an appropriate description, if somewhat macabre given recent findings of bodies in bags. “Man living out of a suitcase” is better, even if it doesn’t flow quite so well.
Most of my belongings went into a self-store lock up storage about this time last year and hasn’t been seen touched since. I have a set of keys to a padlock and a monthly bill to prove it. What didn’t go into storage came with me to the Midlands in my little car. You realise how little a car can be when you have crammed things into every available space apart from the driver’s seat and can just about see with the rear view mirror. Some of those things occupied spare corners of spare rooms, a loft, and a garage as I set off to Montana shortly afterwards with one over-packed suitcase and a couple of heavy carry on bags. By the time I arrived I’d become quite used to walking upright as if the carry on bags weighed nothing, when in fact I should have been bent double because they exceeded the weight limits. Camera equipment is not lightweight.
My time in Montana was not technically lived out of a suitcase; I had a chest of drawers and plenty of hanging space. I also had a wonderful host who had a wonderful dog that seemed to adopt me, or at least adopt a space under my bed given half a chance. I daresay he would have occupied the space on my bed had I let him, or his legs been long enough to get him there - dachshunds are not the tallest breed around. Even so, the sum total of my possessions in Montana had to go back with me on the plane or else get left behind. As it happens I bought another, smaller suitcase for the return journey, still left stuff behind, and now had four bags to deal with at airports plus some extra photo equipment to add to the weight. A man in two suitcases.
The winter months saw me living out of these two suitcases plus a selection of the bags and boxes I’d left behind. It saw me searching for a place to rent in an area I felt was home but which I’d hardly lived in for 40 years. Odd that - most of my time spent away and yet it’s still home. I did find a place. It had a decidedly pink colour scheme, which I was prepared to live with because it had other factors in its favour. It also had a landlord who changed his mind about the whole idea of renting three days before I was due to move in. His prerogative of course. Subsequent searching found a different place which had a landlord who was initially reluctant to let the place unfurnished. The delay prompted me to rethink and subsequently abandon the idea. I moved instead into a friend of a brother’s house and rented a room for a short while.
Stuff happens, it would seem. Moving out of a small house around 20 months before saw all the stuff that had been happening for the previous 21 years come out of hiding. I was heading to a much smaller flat so a significant amount of purging followed, much to the benefit of a local charity shop. By the time I’d moved out I felt I deserved a season ticket to the local dump. More purging followed when I moved out of that flat into storage - no sense paying to store old stuff that was worth less than the additional storage fees. And so I became the Man in a Suitcase (and an assortment of bags and boxes).
My final pilgrimage took me plus my overloaded suitcase and two overweight carry-ons back to the USA for a couple of months, with surplus items going into yet another storage unit while I was away. Deja vu and disbelief prevailed as I weighed my bags before setting off. There must be some universal law of packing that says the amount you want to take equals the amount you need - times two. A second law states that the amount you want to take will always be more than either the suitcase can hold or the airline is prepared to take for free, or both. I got there in the end, wore hardly any of the clothing I took with me and bought different things more suited to the climate. Needless to say I had to borrow a second suitcase to get these and all the additional things I’d acquired back home.
Living out of a suitcase has it’s place. It teaches you just how little you really need and just how heavy luggage can be. My days of living out of a suitcase are fortunately numbered. In less than a week I get the keys to a rental property - providing this landlord doesn’t also have a sudden change of heart. I get to move in, I get to unpack, I get to empty my two storage units, and I get to stay put for a while. Hopefully I don’t get to start accumulating again, at least not much. Travelling light is good.
