How to draw... a backpack [and on starting #inktober whenever]

Nov 15, 2024

I tend toward the fashionably late. Not because I am that fashion-forward but because I have such a terrible time keeping up with you know… time. When October was still a month in the future, and #inktober still a daily drawing challenge set in the “so-much-later-on”, I did swear all mighty that I would commit to this, for the very first time in my life, in earnest, starting on October 1st sharp, every.single.day. As the month is now officially closing, I have no excuse (or all too many) for not showing up earlier on. But my happily-ever-after-slightly-mediocre self is also ok to get started… anytime. So without further ado, here are many thoughts and a few sketchy attempts at day 1 challenge: Backpack.

October 1st [almost] | Backpack

#inktoberwhenever attempt day 1: ‘backpack’ inspired by a rather idiosyncratic selection from thenounproject.com

Inktober kicks off with “backpack” as its first daily challenge prompt. And this somehow feels like such an appropriate image to begin with, it is so familiar to me. I always have a backpack on. And always carry way too much in it. And so the backpack carries the promise of chronicle back pain that I keep ignoring (my brain ignores, my body… not) as if I hadn’t been receiving the stamped spinal notice for years now.

For a while I tried to “resist the dictatorship of the backpack”, as a good friend of mine once put it (we were in grad school, so backpacks on the quad day-in, day-out… it did feel like the backpack dictatorship!). But I have faced the backpack dictatorship and failed to resist. I just have too much “cannot leave the house without” stuff to take with me for a shoulder strap. If you can’t picture it yourself, let me help you: here is what goes into my backpack any time, any day.

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Level 1 - primary, basic, survival level:

phone, glasses, wallet, tiger balm inhaler, sanitizer, keys, battery and cable, ear-loops and headphones.

Level 2 - the surviving-is-good-but-living-is-another-thing level:

all of the above plus mini touch-up pouch (eye-drops, tiger balm oil flask, tiny moisturizer, mouth-spray, lip balm and bold rouge); a camera (which also means: film, because why do things simple and digital?); my e-reader (waiting does happen), reading glasses (yes, that too is happening), planner and pen.

Level 3 - I have my life together level:

Ok so all of the above still falls just into my “I refuse to leave the house otherwise” non-negotiables backpack. But let’s get real here: most of the time my backpack doesn’t leave the building without my all-things-work tablet, 1 or 2 notebooks, a pencil case, a bottle of water, the aspiring I-am-so-learning-a-new-language-today book, a granola bar, a few coins at the bottom that no-one can make use of these days, a pack of chewing gums so melted out that even I won’t dare chewing on those (but then I can’t throw them away because my mom is still in my head giving me the lecture).

Level 4 - The problem:

The problem is that this is just my every-day backpack. But I live between two countries. I travel at least 2-3 times a year across the world because I have two homes. I’ve always had two homes. I’ve always had two countries in my life and that doesn’t include the places and countries that I have lived in for work and research. I don’t know how to not live between two places. Which means that I don’t know how to live a life that doesn’t pack in multiple lives.

That, my friends, comes with a lot of beauty. And a lot of strain. In the heart, in the head and yes… right there in the backbone.

In this life the backpack occupies a very special place: it’s my portable home, my turtle shell. It’s my security blanket in an anxious re-assurance that I am always ready to go, that I’ve got everything, that, ultimately, I’ve got this.

Of course that’s never quite how it goes: you carry the shocking pink lipstick when outfit of the day clearly screams for bright orange (duh). You were supposed to work with this book but now that you are seating down on the other side of town, you realize it’s really that other book you should be focusing on. You refilled the grey fountain pen but the black goes dry. And of course—of course—you show up all prepared to an important meeting with the wrong notebook.

If my backpack could talk I would bribe her not to: she would scream of exasperation. I want to tell her, to explain, to justify:

all I want to do is fit my home in there, so that I can actually always be home.

So I try to draw a sketchnote for her (I’d like to think that backpacks are visual thinkers too!).

Does Backpack + House = Home?

It should be simple: a backpack with a house in it, boom you’re home! But that doesn’t work because I have never really lived in a house. So to me the go to visual of house = home doesn’t fit right. Houses have roots, deep in the soil. I don’t. Houses are spacious and I am/feel tiny so they do tend to intimidate me. They hold on, they stay put, they don’t move. And I just don’t live like that.

I can’t live away from cities. In cities one can find many crowds, but also our crowd, the one that will have your back when things go bad and others raise walls of refusals: refusals of understanding who you are, refusals of seeing you entirely, refusals or letting you be. I live in a city just about the right size right now: 20 millions. I have never lived in such a large city, but I grew up in a building that housed 500-1000 families, next to another building of the same size, next to another building, next to another. So I think I have an inclination toward having people in your face all the time, especially when you think you don’t want anyone around.

You may not have a view when you live on the 20th floor, but you can see an exit, a staircase for refuge, a way up. And I need that. I need a home that can fly away, one that feels familiar wherever you are, because at the end of the day, there is nothing more familiar than a comforter sewn in concrete.

So I put a building in my backpack. It will wear different colors, speak different languages and sparkle of different dusts wherever I go. Hopefully I will convince myself that it will feel like home as long as the backpack comes along. I work hard on convincing myself of my own illusions.

Maybe one day I will finally convince myself that I can live without a backpack.

I hope you enjoyed this reading. If you have comments or questions please feel free to leave them here, this page will feel less lonely! 👯

The Sketchy Anthropologist