I pressed the panic button.

I forgot where I was yesterday when I was in a coffee shop in Oregon, USA and I thought I had lost my wallet. I forgot I was home where I could easily get replacements for any documents I needed.  When I travel and bum around a lot, there are very few possessions that I care about. I tend to bring well used luggage after having seen that high end pack packs are the first to get stolen. I often take clothes that are at the end of their usefulness, so that I have no bad feelings about leaving them behind.

But the wallet! The passport! My Kindle! My debit card! My phone! My tiny computer! When I had my panic yesterday, I remembered the crying people at the airport a month ago who had been robbed and were missing their flight and didn't have the money to get a taxi to the Embassy. For a second, I was far away and had no proof of who I am. It was only a second before my friend caught sight of the wallet and the flash was over.

Two problems presented themselves in that flash. Who am I ? And how did my list of necessities turn into a list of widgets? It used to be that the most important things I brought on a trip were travelers checks, a good book, food and my passport. Travelers checks are over, history. Young people probably don't even know about them. They were money you bought from a company like American Express which could be cashed anywhere and were insured so that if they were lost or stolen, they would be replaced. American Express and the advent of plastic cards ended that. American Express got a well deserved reputation for not reimbursing the banks and the stores for months. No merchant wanted to deal with them.

The good book thing just can't compare to the Kindle on the road. My son and I ran out of books on a beach vacation in Central America and it was a very desperate situation. I read myself to sleep every night. Before I travel now I put tons of emergency books on the Kindle. It is like money in the bank. And a replacement Kindle comes faster than an ordered book.

I need to bring food along more than ever. If we are going down memory lane, remember the days when you got a tasty hot meal on an airplane? Now, it is often a problem to have enough time between flights to buy something in the airport. Moan.

Now the real question. Without my wallet (passport, drivers license, credit card, insurance card) who am I? Without the widgets, how can I communicate? I have lived in places without electricity. I have lived in places without food (El Salvador, Highlands of Guatemala during the 'troubles')  This panic represents a new insecurity to me, which arrived with my dependence on little devices. I don't really like the feeling. I certainly will examine it. I am not a piece of paper or plastic. I would have supposed that I would feel more secure with all this connectivity. That isn't my current experience. I feel more dependent. I am going to assume that when I examine this panic, I am going to free myself from it. I know that being without the accoutrements of contemporary civilization doesn't take away my humanity and doesn't take away other people's kindness. Sometimes it is also the beginning if an adventure.

I remember when we tried out restaurants or hotels or hostels without reading 50 reviews of them It was kind of exciting.Yes, I am going to put my stock in the adventure of it all next time I think I have lost my wallet and not press the panic button.