Prompt 180. My Survival Kit

Joan Didion's packing list & a prompt inspired by it

Road trip essentials: Coffee pot, boots, books, a trusty atlas and scruffy pup

Hi friend,

When I was growing up, my family and I spent our summers traveling. My father was a college professor, my mother an artist, and at the end of the school year, we’d rent out our house for two months and hit the road. We spent some summers riding chicken buses across Central America. Other times, we visited family in my parents’ homelands of Switzerland and Tunisia. On these trips, everyone was required to pack light: one backpack each.

There was a kind of joy in that limitation; it freed me up and forced me to discover new things. We often stayed at hostels, and when I needed something to read, I’d pull a volume from the shelf in the common room. If it was good, I’d pass it along to the rest of my family, and we’d form an inadvertent book club. In Tunisia, the only books in English I could get my hands on were voluminous classics like Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or something by Tolstoy. Our house in the desert was rustic—my uncles Mounir and Jilani had built it themselves—and there was no A/C, no cell phones, certainly no wifi. I can remember lying on the tile floor reading Anna Karenina for hours. Because there was nothing to distract me, I finished it in about three days.

I’ve been thinking about the essentials a lot lately, in every sense of the word. A week from today, I’ll be entering the hospital for a multi-week stay in the bone marrow transplant unit. Over and over, I’ve asked myself: What do I need? What will see me through?

What we bring with us—and where, and when, and why—often seems self-evident, beyond question, needing no exploration. But in fact, it’s an interesting subject to probe. Joan Didion, who left us last month, famously did this in The White Album. Included in that collection of essays is her essential packing list for reporting trips and an extrapolation of what it says about her, her work, and that period of time.

I’ve put together a prompt inspired by Didion’s list, asking what you’d bring and what it means. I’ve also written out my own response, which paid subscribers can read here.

Sending love,

Suleika

P.S. I really stirred the pot in last week’s newsletter with my “Almond milk in coffee is bullshit” claim. To all you coconut, cashew, oat milk, and especially to you almond nutpods fiends, you’re right—some substitutes are more palatable than others. But make no mistake: I’m still gonna be mad about it. And Karen, I saw your comment about how “a cup of good black coffee is much more delicious and satisfying than with the addition of some white or tan liquid.” But the notion that there’s any better way to take coffee than with cream is ABSURD. Half-and-half for life.

P.P.S. I’m looking for light, propulsive, deliciously distracting books to bring with me to the hospital. I’d love it if you’d drop your recs in the comments section.

---

The Isolation Journals is my newsletter for people seeking to transform life's interruptions into creative grist. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, where you get added benefits like access to my advice column Dear Susu, an archive of interviews with amazing artists, behind-the-scenes tidbits from me, our virtual writing hour the Hatch, and other opportunities for creative community.

---

180. The Packing List

An excerpt from Joan Didion’s The White Album (1979)

This is a list which was taped inside my closet door in Hollywood during those years when I was reporting more or less steadily. The list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do. Notice the deliberate anonymity of costume: in a skirt, a leotard and stockings, I could pass on either side of the culture. Notice the mohair throw for trunk-line flights (i.e. no blankets) and for the motel room in which the air conditioning could not be turned off. Notice the bourbon for the same motel room. Notice the typewriter for the airport, coming home: the idea was to turn in the Hertz car, check in, find an empty bench, and start typing the day’s notes. It should be clear that this was a list made by someone who prized control, yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative. There is on this list one significant omission, one article I needed and never had: a watch. I needed a watch not during the day, when I could turn on the car radio or ask someone, but at night, in the motel. Quite often I would ask the desk for the time every half hour or so, until finally, embarrassed to ask again, I would call Los Angeles and ask my husband. In other words I had skirts, jerseys, leotards, pullover sweater, shoes, stockings, bra, nightgown, robe, slippers, cigarettes, bourbon, shampoo, toothbrush and paste, Basis soap, razor, deodorant, aspirin, prescriptions, Tampax, face cream, powder, baby oil, mohair throw, typewriter, legal pads, pens, files and a house key, but I didn’t know what time it was. This may be a parable, either of my life as a reporter during this period or of the period itself.

Your prompt for the week:

Write your essential packing list. What is on it? What does it say about you? About the era you’re living through?

---

If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments below, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.

---

Textile art by Diana Weymar of Tiny Pricks Project

Hospital Survival Kit by Suleika Jaouad

The first time I entered the hospital for a long stretch of cancer treatment, I packed a big red suitcase—the one I’d gotten as a college graduation gift, the same one I brought with me when I moved to Paris for my first job. I filled it ambitiously, naïvely, maybe even a little arrogantly, with tomes like War and Peace, a fortnight’s worth of outfit changes, a yoga mat and exercise bands. I thought I’d accomplish things: I’d read seriously, host all my friends, stay active. But as I wrote in my book, naïveté has a shelf-life and mine didn’t last long.

This time around, I’m going a very different route with my hospital packing list. It goes as follows…

Read more here.