SELS Dialogues Journal Volume 3 Issue 1

Creative Pursuits
Sleeping Bag Transfer
by Dr. Catherine Raine
was stored away in a perpetual coil in my Missouri
childhood home.
Not long after the 20th century spiraled into the
current one, the sleeping bag was unearthed from
the depths of storage and given to me. Following its
passage from Missouri to Ontario, it continued its
dormant, unfurled existence. Out of active service
for 61 years, it seemed unlikely to be recruited for a
second mission, and if the pandemic had not struck, it
might have lain in limbo for another decade or two.
But today your Navy sleeping gear is needed again,
recommissioned by the Community Director of a
downtown Toronto church. He recently requested
emergency donations of sleeping bags, water, and
shampoo for people who have pitched their tents
against the sheltering bricks of the Church of the
Holy Trinity. So, I plucked your bedroll from its dusty
cupboard and ran it through the washer and dryer.
Then I carefully spun it around itself — a ritual winding
prior to resurrection into relevance — before bundling it
into a large Foody World bag for transport.
Dad, I’m giving your military sleeping bag to the Anglican
Church of Canada. The last time you unrolled this large
pocket for sleepy cadets and folded your tall frame into
it, Eisenhower was president, and your younger brother
was still in high school.
You were serving in the US Navy, whose officers were
training you to become an air traffic controller. From
Midway Island, you witnessed atomic testing in the
Pacific, received a gooseberry pie in a package from
home, and wrote long letters to your sweetheart.
After returning to civilian life, you kept this olive-green
souvenir of your time at Midway’s Naval Air Facility
and following your death in 1995 the bedroll that once
padded your barrack’s bunk remained unclaimed. It
On the designated donation day, I arrived fifteen
minutes before the doors of Trinity opened. To pass
the time, I walked the nearby labyrinth with a loaded
dolly that trailed behind like an unsteady pilgrim who
carted your sleeping sack, a case of bottled water,
hand sanitizer, and a blanket. As I twisted and turned
according to the guidelines of an ancient pattern,
I meditated on the evolving, looping journey of the
sleeping bag — from Midway Island to the Midwest,
United States to Canada, Cold War to global pandemic,
Navy to non-military encampment, father to daughter,
car trunk to dolly, labyrinth to arched door. In the
gentle maze of my mind’s centre, images related to the
transfer of Dad’s military property appear: my father is
in the sleeping bag, 21 years old and having just seen
the ocean for the first time, and now it’s 2020 and a
new person is snuggling into the bedding, someone
who needs it.
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