Lost luggage lesson

Press, 9 May 1983, Page 16

Lost luggage lesson

By

NANCY CAWLEY

Like me, you’ve probably thought about it countless times, even said it on occasions, “If only I could start from scratch with all my clothes, scrap the lot and choose a new wardrobe.” If you were ever serious about it, try losing all your luggage on an overseas trip. It happened to me in what I had been told was one of America’s safest cities — Salt Lake City, Utah, Mormon-dominated and reputedly a place where it was safe to walk the streets at nights. Nobody said anything about thefts from hotel lobbies.

I had been waiting in this downtown hotel lobby, for transport up to the ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains where I was to work for the winter.

People came and went, cool dudes in stetsons and cowboy boots, shrill women in furs, and glossy, overweight young couples in Calvin Klein jeans. When the van from the lodge had not arrived after two hours, I went away to ring again. I left my pack, suitcase and skis in a corner.

Three minutes later I returned to find just my skis there. I was left with my Rossignol skis and poles, what I stood up in — shirt, cords and velour sweater, and the contents of my handbag (passport, travellers’ cheques, return dirticket and make-up). The police held out no

hope of recovering the luggage. They’d seen it all before. But for quite a while I thought I’d do the sleuthwork myself. On subsequent trips into town I looked closely at the shadier passersby, waiting for just a glimpse of one of my silk scarves, my down jacket, fur-lined boots, ear-rings or shirts.

One look would have been enough. I was ready to leap onto the suspect, pin him to the pavement and holler for a cop.

I’m really sorry I didn’t get the chance. It would have given me an opportunity to let off a bit of steam.

Not that I got too steamed up. I took the whole thing pretty much in my stride. “Blowing my stack” wasn’t going to get my belongings back. I made a careful list and sent it to the insurance people with a copy of the police report.

New friends on the lodge staff lent me a few essentials, and in between housemaiding and ski-ing, I made shopping forays to malls at the mouth of the canyon.

But the whole episode had been a salutary one — the sort of experience that turns a lot of attitudes upside down.

I had packed for a sevenmonth stay in the States, and had lost too many favourite possessions not to feel that part of myself had gone with them.

Up until now I’d been fond of saying that it wasn’t good to own too much, that I believed in travelling light, and that Bob Dylan had the right idea when he sang, “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose ...”

But somehow it didn’t work out that way.

Some things were functional and easily replaced — my Pentax camera, down sleeping-bag, portable cas-sette-player, ski boots, and stick-on skins for my skis.

But many things I realised were heart-breakingly irreplaceable. Like my beautiful sheath-knife; my favourite ear-rings (I was never going to find pendant greenstone ear-rings in Utah); the scarf my daughter had given me at the airport before I left — skyblue wool with a silver thread, as fine as silk; a collection of tapes, Lou Reed to Mozart, newly recorded on a friend’s tapedeck; that crazy plum-col-oured jump-suit, bought on a whim in an Indian shop

and never worn; the small black lacquer jewellery box, a London Christmas gift from my youngest son years

ago; enough soft chocolatebrown handspun wool to knit a sweater, and a roll of New Zealand ski-ing posters to impress the locals. But if there was one item I would have chosen above all others to have returned it was my diary. The thought of the creep who had taken my luggage, reading my most intimate thoughts of the last two yars infuriated and saddened me. There were whole meetings, partings, conversations and adventures that I would now never be able to recall in full. I felt I had suffered an emotional lobotomy.

Surely the thief must have felt some sort of remorse. And if so, why not return a few of the more personal and precious items like the diary? There were several records of my address in the luggage. But nothing came back. No hint of who now wears my satin Chinese housecoat, bright with flowers and birds, the T-shirt from Hawaii, or the Norwegian Belli Hansen fibre-pile jacket, the natural wool mittens ...

I heard recently of a friend, a guy, who lost two suit-cases in a similar fashion at Victoria Station, London, and never felt any sense of loss. He could hardly remember what was in the cases. Perhaps women relate more to personal property? I don’t know.

So what has all this taught me? Obviously to guard my luggage more closely. To trust in the generousity of friends and to learn to wait forever for insurance firms to get into gear. Has it taught me to set less store by material possession? No, I don’t think so. I realise now that it is good to own well-loved things, either given by friends or family or chosen with care by oneself and to cherish and enjoy them.