Literal baggage

Cardiff All of the time I was away I had a paranoia about my bag, my Gap bag. In various situations for various reasons I had to leave it in places and for the time it was there I would worry about someone else putting their hand on it. Like a snail carries his home, it felt like my bit of home I was carrying about with me. So when I was in a little bookshop and had to leave it near the counter while I hunted for back issues of Sight & Sound upstairs I didn't know was going through downstairs. In Cardiff Castle when it felt wrong and too heavy to carry around the interior and I left it in what I can only descibe as the cloak hut, for much of the time I was walking around looking at the fabulous ceilings I was concerned that someone would be in the hut trying on the extra t-shirt I had with me. When I went out for the evening and left it in my hotel room, again I kept wondering if I'd left my hotel room door open (when I returned to my room on my last night in Paris it was unlocked). On each occasion I kept rationalising that I only had a walkman, some cds, extra clothing and some books and if they went it wouldn't be that big a deal. And on each occasion when I returned it was unguarded -- at the bookshop the owner was helping customers at the other end of the shop, at the castle no one seemed to be paying much attention to the hut and when I returned to the hotel room it still sat on the couch. Each time I knew I was being completely irrational. Then I wondered if that's what being a father was like and whether I'd learnt something good about myself.