Rucksack

The speaker's rucksack symbolizes her backpacking lifestyle. Everything that she owns and needs on a day-to-day basis must fit in the rucksack, and its weight curves the speaker's spine "like a meridian" (4). The energetic pathways of energy in the speaker's body connect to longitudinal lines of the earth.

Baldness

Baldness (a described side effect of the antimalaria drug Larium) symbolizes the possibility of becoming a social outcast. The speaker's younger self is unfazed by the scare stories describing the drug's possible side effects, which are likely told as a warning not to visit places that would require it. But the speaker does not fear becoming marginalized by her backpacking lifestyle.

Laundry

Laundry symbolizes an ordinary and mundane life in contrast to the speaker's exciting adventures. Due to her transitory lifestyle, the speaker's laundry is "overdue" because she can't make time to do it or doesn't have...