Day 37: The Things I Carry

Listening: Let down your guard just a little. I keep you safe in these arms of mine.

What's my problem? Wondering how much a tuk-tuk to the airport is gonna cost.

Right now, the things I carry are out of necessity and out of security. In my pockets, I carry my passport, my airline "ticket," my keys, an eyeglass cloth, my chain wallet with half of my bank cards and credit cards, some cash and an ID, and my Canon SD890 IS digital camera.

Today, I'm also carrying my DaKine backpack. In my backpack, I carry airline reservation information, two cell phones, another wallet with the rest of my bank cards (not to mention my Charlie Card), and a DVD of my SCUBA experience.

In another pocket, I carry a spare pair of glasses and clip on sunglasses. Somehow, in with that I keep an emergency tube of hydration tablets, and Caroline in Hanoi's phone number.

In the front pocket of my backpack, I carry several Sharpie markers, a few pens and pencils, my tiny pad, emergency contact information, zip ties, hand sanitizer, sun block, my iPod, my toothbrush, a bottle of Malarone, some Po Chai Yuen pills, a Caba seed from Thailand, and most importantly, toilet paper.

In the main pocket, I keep a bigger notebook, two Lonely Planet books, a copy of the Chefwear catalogue to show the tailors in Hoi An, an emergency sleeve of Oreos (so sue me), a knockoff Volcom cap, some plastic bags (not as many as my grandmother used to have), all of my electronics chargers and adaptors, and the book "Eat, Pray, Love."

It's a chick book, but I'm reading it anyways. Book exchange is a big thing out on the trail. People swap books all of the time. When I came to Asia, I carried with me a copy of "The Art of Happiness" by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. I had read the book before, but thought that I would reread it here in Asia. As the first month passed, I only got a quarter of the way through. As I read, I remembered everything, and thought to myself, "I have already adapted most of this into my life and I still put effort into the teachings." So, at Utopia a couple of days ago, I traded my copy of "The Art of Happiness" with Chloe's copy of "Eat, Pray, Love" and spent this morning at Morning Glory Cafe eating a giant hashbrown, sipping coffee, and reading. For a morning that wasn't supposed to happen, it was damn fine.

There are a lot of intangibles that I carry with me. I carry with me a bit of paranoia, as I have had friends on the trail who have been robbed by peopleon motorbikes, or whose packs have disappeared in the blink of an eye. I carry a strong distrust of travel agents, for obvious reasons, and a strong respect for the monks that I see walking the streets. I carry an open mind and heart for my fellow travelers, and a smile for those I pass on the streets.

I carry my friends with me. I think about them often and wonder what they're doing right now. I carry the hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll be as lucky as I am to be doing what I'm doing, and seeing what I'm seeing. I hope that they won't have to trust the photos that don't give the scene justice. I carry the wonder of whether they think about me as much as I think about them, and the hope that they're as happy as I am.

I carry with me the dreams of my grandfather and my father. And although they aren't necessarily the same as my own dreams, I carry those as well. I wonder what exactly their dreams were or are. I wonder if they have achieved them. I wonder if the dreams I carry for myself are as simple as they seem to be, or as complex as I make them out to be.

And for now, I carry on, hopefully, to Hanoi. I'll be in search of a spicy beef noodle dish that Linh has told me to look out for. Maybe tonight I'll carry around a belly of that.

Next time I travel, I think I'll carry with me a copy of Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."