Sakura and Suitcases

It wasn’t so much that I hated packing – the clothes, toiletries, last-minute items remembered as I’m already walking out the door. What I really hated was trying to fit everything else into that 2x3 foot polyester suitcase. I can shove in all of the souvenirs I’d accumulated, the heaps of sweaters I bought in winter to keep warm, and the loose pages of Japanese notes I used as study aides, zipping it all inside and knowing nothing will fall out unless perhaps a rogue tornado came by and ripped it open.

But not everything can be packaged up so easily, and with memories, I’ve found, it’s quite different. I can write them down, create albums of photographs, sound out each vowel of their story, but over the years, they’ll begin to escape me - no tornado necessary besides the one in the depths of my mind. Eventually, the things that stand so tall and obvious today will be turned to chicken scratch on a postcard that could have been written by a stranger. The inside jokes and references will seem like obscure tales from a book I started at the end. Surely I once understood them, but just like reading books or watching movies, eventually we forget the details of the story. That’s the thing about experiences – no one has yet invented a suitcase large enough to fit all that they contain. Perhaps the only vessel strong enough for such a task is our entire life. We package each adventure somewhere in our spirit, and though, over time, our mind may have forgotten them, our soul still contains all the crumbs and pieces of our past, neatly woven together to create the exact plot of land we rest on today. In the end, we find that we are the suitcase, but one much stronger than the thick polyester we use for our toiletries. We might not have a container to open up that we can pull each experience out from, but we do have life's subtle reminders - like meeting someone new and feeling an odd sense of nostalgia at the way the corners of their eyes turn up when they smile. We let go of these miscellaneous feelings quickly, forgetting that perhaps they are pieces of a former life - our former life - sneaking out for a brief moment to remind us of all the places we've been. And that we still have yet to see.

“‘You know what I think?’ she says. ‘That people’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed ‘em to the fire, they’re all just paper. The fire isn’t thinking ‘Oh, this is Kant,’ or ‘Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,’ or ‘Nice tits,’ while it burns. To the fire, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. It’s the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there’s no distinction - they’re all just fuel.’”

—Haruki Murakami, After Dark