A letter from a client

At sixty-EIGHT, MY GRANDDAUGHTER ASKED WHO I WAS BEFORE I WAS NANA. I DIDN'T HAVE AN ANSWER UNTIL A PARCEL ARRIVED

Diane Barrows

Stowe · October 2026

I have never written anything like this before, and I'm not sure I'm the type. But a woman at the next table in a café in Jeffersonville asked me about my bag last weekend, and then her friend asked, and then the waitress asked. By the third time I'd told the story, Pam said, for heaven's sake, Jude, just write it down. So here it is. 

It isn't really about a bag. It starts with my granddaughter Ella, who is twenty-four and plans her life around road trips. She was over for Sunday lunch in the winter, scrolling through photos of the Northeast Kingdom on her phone, when she looked up and asked me something nobody had asked me in about forty years.

Nan, what were you like before you were Nan?

I laughed and said much the same, love. And when she asked whether I'd ever done anything like her trip, I gave her the answer I'd been giving everyone, including myself, for years. 

Oh, I'm past all that.

by the front door, packed. ella says it's the most "me" thing in the house.

The summer of 1978

Here's what I didn't tell Ella over lunch. 

In January 1978, my best friend Pam and I borrowed her brother's orange Kombi and drove around the South Island for six weeks. We had forty dollars between us most days, a chilly bin that never quite closed, and Pam's guitar with a peace-sign sticker on the case. We slept with the side door open at Lake Willoughby. We got stuck behind sheep on the Smugglers’ Notch for an hour and didn't mind a bit.

Then came the ordinary things that happen to everyone. Marriage, three children, school lunches, twenty-two years at the council. Pam moved to Nelson, and the phone calls became Christmas cards. None of that is a complaint. It was a good life. But somewhere in it, the girl in the Kombi went quiet, and I didn't notice her going.

by the front door, packed. ella says it's the most "me" thing in the house.

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How it happens

Nobody decides to become sensible. It happens one purchase at a time.

After a certain age, the shops start handing you beige. Navy cardigans, sensible shoes, black suitcases with wheels that look like they're off to a conference. Every single thing is perfectly fine. But put enough of them together in one house and they start telling you a story about yourself, and the story is that the interesting part is over. 

And after you've said "I'm past all that" enough times, it stops sounding like a choice. It starts sounding like a fact.

What I had wrong

I genuinely thought I'd changed. That I'd simply grown into a quieter woman, and that the girl in the Kombi was someone I used to be, like a dress that doesn't fit any more.

But she hadn't gone anywhere. I'd just stopped keeping any evidence of her. Not one thing in my house looked like her. Not one thing I owned said, this woman once slept with the door open at Lake Willoughby. You don't lose who you were. 

You just put her away in a cupboard with the old photo albums.

Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. The things we use every day deserve at least as much thought as the things we dust.

The bag is called the Aquavana

I found it by accident one evening on my iPad, and I nearly put my tea down on the cat.

It's a quilted weekend bag in the shape of a little camper van. The front is the van's face, in cream, with a stitched green peace sign right where the badge would be. Along the sides, the quilted windows show pine trees and blue mountains, with a meadow of embroidered-look daisies running through the grass underneath. It has two soft handles, a blue flowered shoulder strap, and a zip that opens the whole top wide. Everything is stitched and quilted, right down to the tiny headlights.

It's from Nancy & Susan, a small boutique that makes cheerful things for women our age.

the day it came. i had to sit down on the bed for a minute.

My first thought was, don't be ridiculous, Judith, you're sixty-nine. A peace sign? But then I thought about Pam's guitar case, and about the black suitcase in the hall cupboard, and about which of the two looked like it belonged to someone who was going somewhere. I ordered it before I could talk myself out of it.

It holds a surprising amount. A change of clothes, a wash bag, a jersey, a book and my good walking shoes all go in without any clever folding. Because the quilting keeps its shape, it stands up on its own instead of slumping. And because the zip opens all the way, nothing gets lost at the bottom.

the route 2, pam driving. some things haven't changed.

What happened when Ella saw it

Ella came round the week it arrived. She stopped in the hallway, looked at the bag, looked at me and said, Nan. Where on earth did you get that?

So I made a pot of tea, and on the deck that afternoon I told her about the Kombi, the sheep on the Smugglers’ Notch and the forty dollars. Then I got the old album down and showed her the photo. She took a picture of it on her phone and sent it to half the family. My son rang that evening to ask why nobody had ever told him.

That night I rang Pam. A proper call, not a Christmas card. She laughed until she coughed, and then she said, well, what are you waiting for?

Three weeks later I was on a plane to Nelson with the Aquavana on my lap. Pam picked me up in her Corolla. It's not a Kombi, but it has a good stereo. We drove out to Lake Willoughby and the Northeast Kingdom, ate cider donuts on the shore, and talked until midnight two nights running.

At the café in Jeffersonville, a woman at the next table leaned over to ask where the bag was from. Her friend wanted to know if it came in other colours. The waitress said her mum would go mad for it. And a man outside who was travelling in an actual campervan looked at it, looked at his van, and said, mine doesn't look half that good.

Pam said, she's had it a month and she's already more famous than me.

Three things I've learned since

One. Buy the size for the trips you want to take, not the ones you've been taking. The 40 cm one is perfect for a night away or as cabin luggage on a plane. The 46 cm one takes a few outfits and an extra pair of shoes for a proper long weekend. The boutique says most women end up happier with the bigger one. Mine is the bigger one, and they were right.

Two. Keep some evidence of yourself around. The bag sits on the bench by my front door now. My grandchildren ask about it, the neighbours ask about it, and every time I walk past it, it reminds me I said yes to something. It's a funny thing to say about a bag, but the house feels a little more like mine.

Three. Nobody under thirty thinks you're past it. That was entirely my own idea. Ella didn't think so, the man with the campervan didn't think so, and the waitress certainly didn't think so. Cheerful isn't childish. It's just cheerful.

ABOUT THE PRICE

I'll be honest, because this was the part that made me hesitate.

The Aquavana is $44.95 USD in the 40 cm size and $49.95 USD in the 46 cm. Both were $94.90 USD.

With that much stitching, I assumed there had to be a catch. I haven't found one. It's a small boutique selling directly, so there's no big department store taking a cut, and they're running a retirement sale because Nancy & Susan are going with retirement.

Before I ordered, I did what you're probably doing now and read the reviews. There are over three hundred of them, at 4.3 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman wrote: "Bought it for weekends at my daughter’s and complete strangers stop me to ask about it. It holds far more than it looks." That's the one that decided it for me.

Pam has since ordered her own in a different design. She claims hers is nicer. It isn't.

two old friends and two bags on pam's deck. forty-eight years late, and right on time.

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If You Were at My Kitchen Table

If we were sitting on my deck with a cuppa, this is what I'd say. 

 

Think about the last time you said "I'm past all that." Be honest about whether it was true, or whether it was just the easiest thing to say. 

 

A bag won't change your life. Of course it won't. But having something by the door that looks like the woman you actually are makes yes a lot easier to say. And I went far too many years without that. 

 

Two practical things. The retirement sale is on now and the winter road-trip season is coming, so if a design catches your eye, that's the one to grab. And listen to the boutique about the bigger size.

I wasn't past it. I'd just been packed away.

Kate

AQUAVANA | QUILTED TRAVEL DUFFLE BAG

4.3/5 Based on 1.500+ reviews

$112.50

$44.95 USD
  • Quilted weekend bag shaped like a little aqua camper van 
  • Stitched peace sign, pine-tree windows and a meadow of embroidered-look flowers 
  • Zip opens the whole top wide, so nothing hides at the bottom 
  • Quilting keeps its shape however it's packed 
  • Two soft carry handles plus an adjustable shoulder strap 
  • Two sizes: 40 cm and 46 cm 
  • Free delivery across the United States

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retirement sale is ending tonight. get yours while the sale lasts.

Diane Barrows is 68 and lives in Stowe with a labrador. She is not a home writer.

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