Because of Covid-19, students this year are missing graduation as we know it—no processional, no ceremony, no challenging commencement address, no bestowing of diplomas to the cheers of family and friends, no changing of the tassels and tossing of mortar boards into the air, and no emotional hugs and good-byes on the grassy hillsides and parking lots of high schools and colleges across the country. Online salutes and zoom gatherings are just not the same as the traditional pomp and circumstance of other graduation classes.
Thousands of backpacks and book/laptop bags lean against the entry hallway walls in the homes of aspiring students across America. Will colleges actually open? Will master’s programs begin on location? Will internships materialize?
But this isn’t the end of learning, even if the setting and method of the next chapter of education is uncertain. Take it from me, formal graduation won’t mean that you need to hang up your backpack or that this will be the last bookbag to punctuate your journey.
For years I have carried my life around in bookbags. I suppose that started in high school and college when bookbags were almost a part of my anatomy. Then my life was split between traveling on week-ends and managing my at-home life. My reading and writing had to be portable, so I just got new bookbags—one for reading, and one for yellow legal pads for writing prose and song lyrics along with rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses.
When we had babies, I added a “diaper bag.” That, of course, is a misnomer. That bag had much more than diapers in it: emergency baby food, formula, toys to keep a baby occupied in the car seat, an extra change of clothes, board books....
I can’t remember not carrying my life in bookbags. And I will confess that my purse alone carries enough to survive in a foreign country should I have an extended layover. Only when purses started being the object of security screening did I reluctantly eliminate by small jackknife, nail clippers (Do they really think I am going to snip through the skin of the airplane with nail clippers?), sewing kit (with dangerous weapons like my grandmother’s thimble, spare needles, and a threader), and my tiny hammer/screwdriver that I could have used to build a survival hut in the woods, if I had to.
Because we traveled with children all those years, I was never without our craft bag. Every parent knows you can’t be on the bus for a week-end or in a vacation cottage or hotel room for a week without this survival kit. My craft bag was stuffed with water paints, chalk, construction paper, clay, scissors, tape, a stapler, markers, glue, color books, travel games, marbles, jacks, and books to read. I could set up shop in arena dressing rooms, airport gates, or any space with a table. Poolside, we could invite newly made friends to join the fun. Once I was detained at an airport in England because I had brought six boxes of sparklers to celebrate our American Fourth of July, not dreaming they would be classified as firearms.
I have always had bookbags lined up in our coat closet, each containing an unfinished writing project on which I was currently working. Magazine articles in process, unfinished song lyrics, chapters of a book, boxes of note cards I needed to write to thank or keep in touch with friends—there was a book bag for whichever project needed the most immediate attention. No matter what was on the calendar, I was ready. I could just add the books I was currently reading and those to “prime the pump” for writing. (Does that sound like a Biden metaphor?)
One day I realized that my book bags were spending weeks in the closet waiting to be chosen. Like a snowball rolling down a winter hillside, my life had gathered other lives. I had said too many yeses and not enough nos. Did I think I could contribute my time to every cause, take on too many responsibilities, solve the problems of too many worthy projects? My writing had opened doors to too many other opportunities, all good things, helpful things, but they were crowding out my central purpose. My book bags were reminding me to refocus on the central priorities, and to remember that family, friends and writing were my main calling. I wanted to be a woman with a portable mission again.
Like the Israelites, waiting to be freed from bondage, I wanted to be ready to listen when God said go. I wanted to be able to grab my craft bag for a new generation of children. I wanted to choose my note card bag so as not to lose old friends or miss saying “thank you” for kindnesses shown to me. I wanted most of all to pick up my writing essentials and go. I wanted to connect the dots of the life I’ve been given, now that I have gained the perspective of hindsight. I wanted to be open to new things like this blog, celebrating and sharing this “love song to my life.”
So these days I am listening even more to my book bags, excited to pick up the one for today. When the promised land is calling, I want to be ready to cross any sea to get to it. May no manna fall or any rock gush cool, clear water and find me distracted by some golden calf and miss it!
