I loooooooooove those “what’s in my bag posts?” I’m a bag voyeur.
Not only that, I’m a lifelong bag lover. When I was one and a half, my paternal grandmother gave me a tote bag (yellow, with magenta straps and lining, yellow and magenta flowers on the outside, and a plastic pocket for sunglasses). My dad asked her why, because he couldn’t fathom why a toddler would need a purse. My grandmother, a wise woman, said, “Little girls love purses. She’ll put stuff in it and carry it around.” And of course that’s not universally applicable (I’m the daughter of a woman who doesn’t carry a bag of any kind since she got to ditch the diaper bag in the late ‘90s) but my grandmother had me pegged from birth: I love putting stuff in a bag and carrying it around! Even today! Nothing makes me happier than optimizing my bag for my day!
I also believe the contents of your bag or pocket or glove compartment or wherever you keep the things you won’t leave home without say something about you. What do you like? What do you do? Where do you go? Who are you? We reveal ourselves in so many different ways. The things we carry tend to be a little more private, but they still tell a story about who we are.
After many years of trying to find the Perfect Bag, trying crossbodies, messenger bags, totes, backpacks, whatever I thought was going to absolutely solve all of my problems, I have both settled into my life as a Professional Who Doesn’t Like Your Dress Code and a bag which reflects my needs for both work and my day to day life. I cannot change my bag out daily. No, that is too much for me. It requires an ability to remember and sort which I cannot demand of myself every day. I do have auxiliary bags these days, for special occasions or certain jaunts which don’t require my whole main bag, but my daily bag is one I carry all the time. To work, to the bookstore, to the cafe, on a trip to Toys ‘R’ Us with my nephew, on random wanderings, it’s my personal item when flying. It’s roomy enough to throw in my water bottle and a pair of shoes, or a few things from the grocery store when I run in. It fits several books. I could stuff snacks and a sweater in there, if needed.
It turns out the Perfect Bag is a canvas tote bag. Not just any canvas tote bag, but a Baggu Duck Bag, which has two sets of handles, a smaller zipped inner pocket, and a snap at the top. I love the idea of tote bags, and indeed, I went through several before finding this one, which met my desire for internal organization of a bag (I went through a period where I thought the Perfect Bag had many compartments and pockets, but really I just forgot about things that way) with the reality that I just need a large-ish bag that can hold a bunch of stuff because I tend to pick stuff up in my travels.
That’s not to say that I don’t try to impose some level of organization on my black hole of a bag. Merely that I prefer it to be flexible.
Inside the small zippered pocket, I keep my keys. House keys, car keys, and (not pictured) work keys and ID badge. I also stick my phone in there. Of course, I don’t ever seem to zip the little pocket, but I like that exists. If I ever needed it, you know.
Everything else lives in the main part of the bag, in a pile of loose things that I tend to dig through by feel. In the small zippered pouch, purple with a pattern, is an emergency KN95 mask. I need to mask at work and I haven’t stopped while out in public, for many reasons, but at least one of them is because I don’t want to forget to mask at work. It is very embarrassing when you accidentally leave your office, walk all the way downstairs, out the physician entrance and get halfway around the hospital trail before realizing you don’t have a mask.
In the orange pouch are my sunglasses. I’m highly photosensitive, so I need to have these on hand at all times. I am the person wearing sunglasses when it’s cloudy out. When I got contacts, I was excited to be able to have sunglasses - my parents were not about to buy me prescription ones when I was a kid whose eyes kept changing, but they were fine with buying ones without. And despite the joy I’ve found in being able to buy sunglasses at the corner store, I did get these from a real optician with polarization and all the good coatings and such, because I must admit I need to shell out a bit for a decent pair.
The blue pouch is a reusable bag, from Type Books. I made an order from them in the fall, which was delayed, and they sent me this bag in my order as an apology. I’ve got heaps of reusable bags - I used to buy them for absurdly cheap when I worked at a grocery store, and have been using them since then, but I keep them in my car, and they don’t fold up as neatly as this one does.
Other miscellany:
Today’s book, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I’m only a little bit in, but it seems promising
wallet: home to cards, loyalty cards, a few photos, gift cards, and stamps, because I’d lose them otherwise
The small off-white square is a magnetic bookmark that my former boss sent me for Christmas one year
Yes, I keep a metal straw rattling around in the bottom of my bag, what of it?
Excel White Bubblegum flavour: my office neighbour gave me this double pack in my Christmas bag. She’s the wellness lead, so it checks out that she’s given some sort of healthy-ish gum
Notebook with a Van Gogh almond blossom print and a space pen
The yellow pouch houses a bunch of personal things: hair elastic, bobby pins, pill case (never go anywhere without your lactose pills, my fellow lactose intolerants), tweezers, baby clippers because I have tiny hands and thus tiny nails, hand sanitizer (strongly recommend having a bunch of coworkers who gift you hand sanitizer for every occasion the entire pandemic so you never have to buy any), a roll of blotting paper + mirror, concealer, a small vial of perfume (Phoenix Botanicals Lilac Rain), a travel size of Nivea Soft cream, Rosebud Salve Co. lip balm, and today’s lipstick, MAC Viva Glam X Keith Haring in Red Haring, a glorious red.
Am I prepared for everything? I’m prepared for most things. It’s taken years to get to this, not carrying too much but carrying just enough, and here we are. But of course, there are times when this bag isn’t quite right, and I only need a few things, or it being slung over my shoulder isn’t as secure as I need.
Enter…the belt bag. Or fanny packs, as we called them back in the day. I resisted them for a while, because I had deep, dark memories of the ‘90s (and a clear vinyl one with a fun pattern and a blue zipper and strap. It went great with my Spice Girls ring. Wow I was a very cool seven year old). And also I didn’t realize you didn’t have to wear them around your waist because I’m not on Tik Tok and I live in rural New Brunswick, it took a hot minute for belt bags to get here.
So I gave in. I got this one, on sale even, from the Lululemon Team Canada collection. And…it is very good and suitable for carrying my keys and phone and a card or two on walks, or on a night out where I might not need my book, if those nights even exist.
How do you carry your daily items around?
Okay Alison, I do love the cow print bag! I need one like that. What other patterns do they come in? Telephone booth one maybe! You must share the website link with me.
So it seems we have a lot of similar habits around bags. I have gone through much transition over the years to finally find a canvas bag that is light to carry, will also carry my water bottle if needed or my smaller shopping trip purchases. It is not fancy, but oh so practical. It is black so it does not show the dirt easily. And then one day I had an awesome idea. Maybe I should see if it comes in yellow to go with the yellow thing. And indeed it did, and yes I bought it! So now I have 2 awesome canvas bags. Actually make that 3, as I have a blue one that has a kind of wintry look to it, but I love it because of the way it fits over my shoulder.
So I think my fourth canvas bag needs to have a bit more flare to it to reflect another side of my personality. I will work on that!
Backpacks, Alison, backpacks. For me, anyway.