The Quest for the Perfect Carry-On Bag

I let a bag go, once. It was a green-and-black nylon messenger that REI called a Musette, marketed after the canvas envelope used by paratroopers and bicycle racers to carry food. Aluminum cotter pins secured the strap to the bag, light but solid, a touch that always pleased me. It carried a laptop I bought with money from my first consulting job. It cosseted plane tickets in a flap pocket, kept out the rain, and held a change of underwear and socks without making too big of a deal out of it. It carried one book, not two, nudging me into a prudence I would otherwise have lacked; my bag concealed a copy of The Wings of the Dove for the entire two years that I failed to read it. And on a faithless whim I gave my Musette to a friend.

He still has it. He lives on another continent. REI no longer makes the Musette. And I am in love with its memory. Musettes show up on EBay, sometimes, but something about someone else’s used bag feels unholy. The intimacy we feel with bags comes, in part, from what we ourselves have done with them.