Illustration by Guinevere von Sneeden
• First, the knapsack itself will be sturdy and large, made of worn leather or canvas. Perhaps it is a tapestry bag with a design of trees and leaves on the side. It will be dusty and dirty from time spent out in the moors and forests.
• Quill, fountain pen, or dip pen and small pot of ink.
• Raggedy journal, or tattered bits of paper tucked here and there like feathers among the other items in the bag. Some will have fragments of poetry on them; some might have sketches of a river, a tree, or a lovely girl’s smile.
• CDs by David Bowie, Nick Cave, or Hozier.
• Half-rotten apple the Romantic has forgotten was in the bottom. (They are often too distracted to eat anyway.)
• Scattered leaves. Some were green and lovely when placed into the bag and grew brown and paper-delicate, while others show shifting colors of red and gold.
• A pair of binoculars. Romantics love to look at things more closely, both literally and metaphorically.
• Several acorns and dried petals.
• Slim volume of Keats or Tennyson, Shakespeare or Dante, well thumbed-through.
• To-do list with nothing checked off.
• Old theater ticket or playbill covered in notes and curled up at the edges by an intensely emotional viewer.
• Map covered in pencil marks indicated places been or yet to travel.
• Small bottle of elderflower wine.
