Nicole – Hockey & HemorrhoidsÂ
The title of this task is reminiscent of a collection of short stories by Tim O’Brien called “The Things They Carried”. This collection centres on a platoon of soldiers in the Vietnam war, and the title refers to everything the soldiers carried as they marched through Vietnam, both physical items and intangible feelings. It reminds us that the things we carry with us are symbolic and carry ‘weight’ both physically and emotionally in our lives.
With that said, I feel that this task was a great way of getting to know one another. I particularly liked Nicole’s response to the task because the items found in her hockey bag really pointed to a larger narrative of who she is as a person, and what she values in her life. It was obvious that being a mom is a very important part of who she is as a person, and the items in her hockey mom bag also showed what kind of a mom she is – a very prepared and organized one!
I appreciated that she noted her bag would have looked very different before she became a mom, and I would imagine something a lot more like mine. My bag communicates the story of someone who is very much not a mom, to the point that I can’t even carry a wallet around without losing it! From the perspective of an archeologist, I wonder if one found the contents of both of our ‘bags’ if they would imagine Nicole and I as being a part of the same cohort in some aspect of our lives. Though the things in our bags point to the same time period, they point to different lifestyles which might not be perceived to overlap.
References
O’Brien, T. (2009). The things they carried. Houghton Mifflin (Trade).