Stories

It’s one of the most frequently asked questions I get via email, comments, and messages across social media: how do I do what you do? And by what I do, I assume people mean…

This is how your heart breaks: slowly and deliberately, and then all at once. A story about falling in and out of love.

Zanzibar sunset. Photo by Helen It has been exactly 56 days since I last posted on this blog. 56 days! The longest I have ever gone without posting on This Battered Suitcase.…

The North Coast 500, Scotland Things have been quiet on this blog and its social media lately. I’ve been busily packing up my entire life, meticulously wrapping all of my belongings in bubble…

I went to South America because of my sister. She went to South America because of a bottle of mezcal.

Wait. Let me back up. At 22 years old, I took my first long-term solo trip around Europe. That led to years of solo travel and living abroad, including a year travelling through Asia. In that year, I’d met another backpacker who became my boyfriend. When we broke up, I felt totally lost; we had made all of these grand plans together, and suddenly I was stuck in a Winnipeg winter trying to save my pennies as a bartender. I had no idea what to do next.

“You should go to South America, you’d love it,” my big sister Zalie said to me the night I got dumped, as if it was the natural next step. And just like that, a seed was planted, a fire lit. Within five months of that conversation, she was dropping me off at the airport to fly to Belize, where I’d start a nine-month journey through Central and South America.

People often ask me where I got the confidence, the bravery, or the idea to travel the world on my own.

“Easy,” I say to them. “I simply followed in my sister’s footsteps.”

On Saturday, January 21st, I walked over 10,000 steps with approximately 100,000 people in London – millions of people when you include the entire world. Together, we marched for women’s rights (for all women’s rights), for LGBTQIA rights, for worker’s rights, for immigrant rights, for disability rights, for reproductive rights, for civil rights, for environmental justice, and for ending violence.

It was a cold but beautiful day, the sun coming out to cast light on our route. I showed up alone, but from the moment I stepped out of Oxford Circus tube station – Bond Street was already overcrowded and closed – I felt a sense of unity, of solidarity. Thousands of us walked down Oxford Street towards the American Embassy, but the streets were already so crowded that we were soon brought to a halt. We didn’t start marching for at least an hour or so, but it didn’t matter; we were all talking to one another, cheering, singing, and making new friends. I saw people of all ages, of all backgrounds, of all walks of life.

Here’s why I decided to march.