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Your suitcase has been searched, and it was I, with my curious eye, who searched it. I sensed that you were carrying contraband. What have you to say in your defense?
She told me this: One woman's contraband is the next woman's legal and official necessity, the feedbag of her soul, the sole source of her sustenance. Remove it from a suitcase as you search and you will bear the dire consequences.
Let's put an end, she went on, to suitcase-searching as a strategy. Leave to each one the things she holds most dear: her awareness of the moon, for example, or her memory of the pre-dawn bird orchestra heard from the darkness of her front porch.
Whatever contributes to my joy or life is mine to keep. I will protect it with a sign that reads "DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE SUITCASE." You have no right to peer into the rites and celebrations of my life. It is MY right to learn to know the planet of my existence.
I wondered what they meant, these high-flown words of hers flung in rebellious anger. But I used the brilliant light of her words to search my own suitcase and found it lacked what I really needed. Is it too late, I asked her, to go back, too late to repack?
Her reply had a familiar ring: It's time to pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.
Smile, she said again.
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