"Traveler's Color" is a wonderful phrase
This is sudden, but I am someone who keeps things for a very long time.
Clothes, shoes, smartphones, earphones, backpacks. I have a nature where I cannot easily throw away things that have become part of my daily life, so I use them until they break, tear, or stop functioning properly.
The lifespan of my backpacks, in particular, is exceptionally long.
When I was in junior high school, I needed one for a club tournament, so I bought a large black backpack. It cost 1,200 yen. It was from some brand I didn't know, and the rustling, translucent black nylon fabric felt nice.
Perhaps that rustling feel was just too good. When I was heading to a local department store to buy a new backpack as I entered high school, the thought suddenly crossed my mind: "I've used it for three years, I might as well keep using it until it breaks." Ah, I wish I could tell that version of myself.
Backpacks, surprisingly, do not tear.
Even now, 10 years later, it is still going strong.
The backpack that has spent one-third of my life with me is no longer just a 1,200-yen bag. The rustling nylon has become limp beyond recognition, the translucent black has faded to a dull light purple after being exposed to countless rains and winds, and it is covered in familiar creases like the laugh lines etched into an old man's face, possessing a dignity like that of a cursed object passed down in some remote village.
This New Year, when I returned to my parents' home.
My mother, seeing that backpack for the first time in five years, muttered this in a voice mixed with deep emotion and exasperation.
"You know, that backpack has completely turned into a 'traveler's color'."
Traveler's color. I don't know if it's my mother's own unique language or a real vocabulary, but I thought it was a wonderful phrase.
Usually, colors like "nightingale green," "peach pink," or "orange" are named based on visual analogies. It's peach pink because it's the same color as a peach. That's the normal way of thinking.
But "traveler's color" is different.
It is a color name that encompasses the years it took for that color to seep in, respect for the story behind it, and a sense of nostalgia.
Traveler's color.
It is a truly good name that touches the heart.
Is there a "traveler's color" around you, too?
If you can find even one such color in your own life, you must be living a happy one.