Filmmaker Harrison Boyce's dreamlike depiction of his bi-coastal drive from New York to Seattle provides a timely counterpoint to the hectic season of catching planes, trains and automobiles back to wherever counts as 'home' in time for Christmas. Soundtracked by NOWNESS regular Boyce's brother Hamilton's band, Song Sparrow Research, the video evokes the family spirit of the season; to accompany the piece, New Yorker and McSweeney's writer Kate Hahn dwells on how best to package the myriad feelings that the trip back brings out of us with her twelve-step guide to handing the pressures that familial saturation might bring. “Every holiday road warrior carries one piece of luggage,” she explained to us, before boarding a flight from Los Angeles to New York for the break. “It is called the emotional suitcase, and it is crammed with feelings associated with a journey home. It is heavy, awkward, musty, criss-crossed with the duct-tape of denial, and dented from being slammed into life’s many obstacles. Here are a dozen tips that will make packing yours much easier.”
How to Pack Your Emotional Suitcase
1. Place shame on the very bottom layer. The best-case scenario means you will not remove it at all even if a relative says, “We are all wearing our matching family shame for the group photo. Why didn’t you bring your shame like the rest of us?!”
2. Loneliness, longing, and lovesickness—the three L’s—belong in individual 3.2 oz. liquid containers inside a zippered toiletries case so they cannot leak all over your other feelings.
3. Starch and iron your sense of resignation and then fold it like a boxed shirt. If it starts to wilt during a holiday visit home, you might become unhinged at Christmas dinner and loudly question your irrevocable life choices.
4. Boastfulness is hard to pack. It is springy. Best leave it out altogether or put it in a felt drawstring bag of humility and cinch tightly.
5. Roll together conflicting feelings as you would a pair of socks. Wear gratitude and resentment or joy and pain simultaneously. Think of it this way: red and green are opposites, but they are inseparable at Christmas.
6. Lust. You never bring as much as you need. There’s always someone you glimpse at the airport gate or the gas station or the train platform that ignites your desire. And then there is that ex you run into at the wine bar…
7. Go ahead; wrap your delicate heartbreak in tissue paper. Those of us with cracked tickers fear further damage. But take it out and unwrap it. Wear it. You will see it is not as fragile as you thought.
8. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, pack a good supply of anger. Traveling without it during the holidays will leave you hamstrung.
9. Resist the urge to cram in every piece of sentimentality you own. Better to stock up at your destination, as it is omnipresent during the holidays
10. Too much sadness will weigh you down, as if you were wearing a vintage woolen army overcoat with lapels the size of baby elephant ears. Wear it during your travels and then put it in the closet when you arrive. A caution: it will feel a lot heavier when you leave.
11. Love is the bathing suit of everyone’s emotional suitcase. It will not take up a lot of space on your outbound journey but once you use it, it grows weightier. However, unlike a swimsuit, love should not be stored in a plastic bag on the way home.
12. Bring along at least one layer of surprise. After all, the holidays are all about sharing big news. Even if it is the revelation that your sister’s new fiancé is your ex from the wine bar.