During the pandemic I rarely find myself leaving the house, and when I do, I often leave my bag in the car as the only thing I truly need is my cell phone to which I use to pay for items and my car keys to physically get from point A to point B. Since my last day of teaching at school, March 20th, I have only left the house to get groceries or purchase items for small house projects that I do to help pass the time. Many of these items are things that I occasionally need but like to have accessible such as pens, lip gloss, hair scrunchie, protein bar. As you can see the entire container or Lysol wipes has found its new home in my bag as I clean items that come into the house.
These items begin to tell the story of who I am based on what I carry with me. These objects provide meaning to the “reader” about the places I live, culture and activity. My car keys would say I live in a place that requires a vehicle to get around. Items that provide insight into my personal values include the book, a content heavy book about DNA, and name brand items I purchase including the Kate Spade purse and Apple cell phone case. The pen, marker and highlighter could send the message that I like to take notes in a book, however in my circumstance I believe it demonstrates the hint that I am a teacher.
In my bag I bring my cell phone when I leave the house. My cell phone is a communication tool that I use daily. My cell phone says that I, like millions of people in this world that own a cell phone, carry about a communication tool. I engage with professional language when using my cell phone for work and informal language when I communicate with friends and family on social media. As text is described as technology than the book in my bag would communicate content to me through its reading.
My bag tells people that I have digital literacy as I engage with people online using my cell phone. I have foundational literacy as I read text in my book that I carry around with me and writing utensils that I use. I could argue that the container of Lysol wipes would illustrate a news literacy to recognize the current pandemic that has shaken our world with an ability to evaluate the information provided by the news in order to make decisions on how to move forward with my personal decisions.
The items in my bag may give someone the impression that I am “high maintenance” with my designer purse, ray-ban sunglasses, and high-end lip gloss. Looking at an image of myself that I outwardly project I would not consider myself to be “high maintenance”, however my bag may tell another story. This is an assumption I am making about other people and may not be the case at all.
25 years ago, many of the product brands that are inside this bag did not exist, but the items could be replaced by brands that were popular at the time. My cell phone would remain but would lack a large screen and that not be as thin. Apple had yet to design a cell phone and therefore 25 years ago it may have been Nokia? The car keys may not have automatic buttons, the hair scrunchie would be larger and more colourful, the water bottle would be plastic. Companies such as Bath and Body and Sage were just starting out as companies and would not be as mainstream and prevalent as they are today. The book would not have been written a some of the information in the book about DNA had yet to be discovered and therefore would be replaced by a book about DNA from that time. The bag itself would be replaced as Kate Spade had yet to be founded and could be replaced with a designer from that time.
I imagine an archeologist may look at this bag and decide it belonged to another “basic” girl from the early 2000’s. What may lead them to better approximate the year in which it belonged to is the container of Lysol wipes. Making a prediction into our future I would say that we will be living with the novel coronavirus for a few years and sanitizer products may be more prevalent moving forward. With the being said, the archeologist may be able to determine that based prevalence of Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer this bag could be dated post 2020.
