Romance travels light
Would you go travelling with someone you scarcely know? Someone you’d just met online? Someone who insists you forgo itineraries, hotel reservations and luggage?
It sounds crazy and potentially dangerous, but Texas author Clara Bensen said yes to this three-week travel experiment. The upshot is her memoir No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering. Just four weeks after meeting university professor Jeff Wilson through dating site OkCupid, he asked her to join him on an unusual trip in June 2013: fly from Houston to Istanbul, fly home 21days later from London, and figure out the in-between stuff along the way. They would take the clothes on their backs — cherry-red chinos and a Stetson for him, a green dress and sandals for her — plus phones, passports, toothbrushes and a few other items they could stuff in pockets or in a small purse. No luggage.
But emotional baggage? That’s a different story. Clara, 25 when they met, had recently recovered from a disabling two-year anxiety disorder. Jeff, in his 40s, had an ex-wife and five-year-old daughter.
No Baggage is no stunt memoir. Jeff, with a PhD in environmental science, has conducted other curious social experiments, including living for a year in a refurbished 33-squarefoot dumpster to research sustainability. And Clara, a fine writer, is a sensitive, perceptive soul who, after her mental illness, learns the human experience is not a geometry question with a correct answer. “The entire universe — from cells to stars — is embroiled in wave after churning wave of change,” she realizes. She craves Jeff’s chaos, his torrid, restless yang a stark counterpoint to her quiet, introspective yin.
As they traverse Europe via bus, boat, hitchhiking and bikes, couchsurfing with strangers, Clara feels elevated by this wild new lightness. But at times she also feels unmoored, and the couple can’t avoid the classic “Where are we?!” argument, complete with crumpled map and shouting tirade. Only at the end do we learn if the two are still together.
At a time when we over-research and preplan everything to death, No Baggage is a refreshing exploration of the fickle beauty of uncertainty. Marcia Kaye is a frequent contributor to the Star.