Story Eighteen
That time I left, again.
I have packed my bags many times. At one point maybe five years ago, when I was as likely to be on the road as I was to be home, I had streamlined my gear down to a single messenger bag and a suitcase that would count as an international carryon, which is a sentence that doesn’t make sense to most normal people but is earning me some jealousy from frequent travelers. Those days are gone now, in the same way that I still own my favorite jeans from thirty pounds ago but at this point I’m just saving them for the kids because there isn’t a future in which I wear them again.
Packing is different when you’re disabled. I never had to make room for glaucoma medicine before, or make sure that I had enough extra ounces to carry both a cold and hot eye compress. I’ve never compulsively checked customs websites to check that my bottles comply with label regulations so that my medication isn’t confiscated. Although, let’s face it, you can still buy codeine over the counter in most countries so it seems doubtful that they’d be terribly interested in why I’m carrying six bottles of steroid eye drops, unless the kids have invented a new kind of drug that I’m not aware of. I know of liquid club drugs, but surely telling a customs official “that’s mostly saline, I don’t *recommend* squirting any in your mouth but I’ve got time to sit and wait and see what hits you, I suppose” would be enough?
I’m still incredibly streamlined; I own packing cubes and a million visually identifiable little pouches and some clear ones. I am that traveler that TSA agents give approving glances to because I know how many bins to grab (I need four. One for each laptop, one for outerwear and shoes, one for my clear reusable silicone plastic liquids bag and any other random thing) and I’m ready to drop all my gear in with practiced efficiency. All of my gear comes in its own hard or soft case, and I weigh my luggage and prepay any extra fees on the app. Packing used to be just laying out all my usual containers and filling them with seasonally appropriate clothing and job-appropriate gear.
It’s all out the window. My beloved Knomo messenger bag doesn’t hang properly off my rollator and there are days that I cannot carry it alone. I’ve had to completely reimagine how to store what I need for a day in a city to fit into the bag that came clipped to my new wheels. It’s just…a bag. Nary a pen holder or business card holder to be found in this thing, it’s cheap nylon utility. And I am a woman who loves her pockets. On the up side, it’s a bitch to get this thing attached or take it off to fold the chair up for transport, so it’s relatively theftproof without any extra effort.
There is also the concern about the just eccentric amounts of things I clip to my body now, in typical adaptive fashion. Even at home, my phone is on a lanyard around my neck. When I go out, I add a crossbody wallet that only carries my cash, cards and ID. When I am out taking photos, I have a hip holster for my DSLR. Even my AirPods are attached to earrings, because if one falls out it’s 50/50 I’d ever find it again. Knowing that sometimes my good eye will simply stop working, I’ve fail-proofed my gear to the extent that I can. It suits me just fine, but I do look a bit odd even before we add in the eyepatch or the wheels.
I worry, too, about returning to old stomping grounds but this time with wheels. One of course realizes how hard something is to do when one has to do it, but it occurs to me that while I know the London transport system well enough to know that I can jump on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow, I have no idea which stops have elevators. I have a vague memory that it wasn’t all of them, but the one time I was with a friend that needed them I simply tagged along with them because they knew their route. I didn’t burn them into my memory or anything.
I have to relearn London. I remember being enchanted by the narrow alleys and cobbled streets which now seem to me like some kind of obstacle course or possibly a dare, depending on my mood. I don’t carry a cane when I have the wheels, which I need to get to the shop or venue or restaurant where I’d need the cane. (That said, there’s a particular shop I’m looking forward to going to that does these fancy walking canes and I am ABSOLUTELY investing in a bespoke cane now, in the same way that the last time I was there I invested in a quality messenger bag and nearly a decade later I’m mourning taking it out of my daily rotation.)
The fact is that for years now I’ve been refusing to admit that my capacity has shrunk by more than just my peripheral range. I was waiting for recovery, pushing myself in the wrong ways to get back to what I had decided was my life’s work. I figured that all I had to do was relearn to see; Marie Colvin did it. I’d be back just as long as I worked hard enough and pushed through enough. I was front line, the one that runs into the chemicals. I stayed when CNN went home.
As the weeks and months have passed, and I’ve learned more about how permanent damage and knock-on effects work, I’ve come to “accept my limitations,” by which I mean I can’t always get in the front door but I’ll nearly always find a side way.
So I got a call from a friend who asked if I was available to come to Europe, because they knew I’d lost an eye but that was a couple years ago now and there were too many well-meaning greenhorns just…walking into war zones with no gear or insurance or fixers or sense of danger. It happens every time protests kick off in the States too, there’s a bunch of us that cover these things for a living in our various mediums and then there’s the people who are completely unprepared, from their gear load to their sartorial choices. (It should be clear that every seasoned pro was once one of these new folks; that’s how you learn. But maybe not in a war zone.)
I hadn’t *planned* on ever reporting on a foreign war, my beat is usually foreign welfare systems and economic policy; whenever I’ve done anything that might be best described as conflict journalism, there’s been a ZIP code attached to it. Turns out I never will do foreign conflict, either. If you can’t run, you can’t be in places where you might need to. You’re a danger to yourself and others, and being an intentional liability is worse than plagiarism in this line of work.
What I could offer, what I can do, is to cover the knock-on effects of war. I know about the terror of waiting for and trusting strangers to help you, hoping that you’re not walking into a somehow more confusing and frightening world. I know a bit about waking up one day and your life isn’t exactly gone but your old life is, and you don’t have a choice but to navigate this new one.
It’s just flashes of similarities, but I’m not going to be asking people why did you run because the answer is obvious. I’m going to be asking what do you need or what do you wish people would know? I think there are some things you only learn when you’ve lived through something you wouldn’t wish on most of your enemies. Something you wouldn’t even wish on the people who did this if you are the kindest sort of person, but that nobody could blame you for if you did.
So I’m going to Germany. I leave on the first of May for London for three days, and then I’m on to Berlin where I’ll be staying a month to report. That’s why I’m packing.
Sav Adler will be in charge of my accounts while I’m gone, and they’ll be doing my posting and replying.
This turned into another piece entirely, so I’ll mock Gwinn gently later. This supposed to be to point you to Dom’s work and fundraising for this, because I really did call him and ask him did he want to quit his job and come to Europe to report on refugees and the man just said yes.
Support his work.
Follow Dominic on Twitter and Instagram,
Support Dominic monetarily at this Go Fund Me, his Patreon and don’t forget to subscribe his Substack newsletter below!
