There was this purse I saw, and I thought it could change my life, and maybe it will. I’m not usually a purse person, possibly because of my grandmother on my mother’s side. My relationship with her was not ideal, and her purses were horrible.
She was prickly. Not abusive or even mean, just prickly. She’d visit and bring you a present, but tell you how you should be grateful for it. She’d send twenty-five bucks for your birthday, but the card said to be sure to let her know what you spent it on, and don’t squander it away. When I was a senior in high school, she praised me for my nearly straight-As report card, and then told me to be careful because I was getting chunky. (I weighed 119 pounds at the time.) She once voiced relief that my sister was attending the Naval Academy for college because maybe among so many men, she’d find a husband who would overlook “all those awful freckles.”
I don’t know what dysfunction in her own upbringing caused her to lace her compliments with criticism, but I know this: her purses were awful. There was a big cream-colored one I remember from my childhood, not so much ivory colored as pale mustard, with black buckles. There was a black monstrosity that was her every-day purse, covered in something dark and shiny that was peeling off in places, revealing something like cardboard underneath. And her “nice purse,” the giant white one she carried in her old age, made of vinyl that she said looked like “kid skin,” which made me think somewhere out there existed purses made of children. They were all horrible, and not for lack of money, since one thing my grandmother did very well was invest. She read the Wall Street Journal Every Day and had done well for herself, but carried purses that would not sell at any thrift store, anywhere.
The handles of my grandmother’s purses were too short to wear over her shoulder, so she wore them over her left arm, resting in the crook of her elbow, rendering that arm T-rex-like and useless, with the hand sticking up idly, Monty-Burns style. Her purses were spacious, and she took pride in showing you how they held her wallet, her checkbook, a small pack of tissues and her glasses with room to spare. Enough for a mid-size Buick.
So I tried, my entire life, to carry as little as possible in the smallest bag possible. In high school I carried a tiny wallet and a lip gloss in a bag the size of a sandwich bag, with the enviable GUESS triangle on it. In college I went all student-scholar, with only a backpack, except at night when I would cram some cash in my pockets (if I went out at all). The diaper-bag years of my late twenties and thirties offered a respite, because a diaper bag screams THIS IS TEMPORARY I HAVE A BABY, but still, even my diaper bag was a a plain brown backpack. And when the kids were all old enough to carry their own stupid sippy cup, I got something called a mini-crossbody, a tiny little thing that says See? I don’t even need a purse anymore!
But last week I saw this purse. I was not shopping for purses, but that day I believe my car keys and phone were sticking precariously out of the shallow pockets on the back of my pants, making my butt look the size of Mrs. Doubtfire’s, and my wallet was tucked under my arm so I wouldn’t have to carry it, giving me a lop-sided gait as I shopped. The purse was in a shoe store, where I was waiting for daughter-one to try on ten pairs of Sperrys that all looked the same, so I had time to wander and browse. And there it was, beckoning me to come forward and touch it’s buttery softness.
It was small, as “bags” go (bags, I have learned, being different from purses), but large enough to hold a wallet and an i-pad, or a tattered copy of the short stories of Edna Ferber. The leather was real and soft, but not floppy and flimsy, and it smelled like libraries and tobacco and nostalgia; like Indiana Jones. There was a pocket on the front perfect for a phone, but not so perfect that it seemed to scream phone pocket, so you wouldn’t have to dig in the main compartment and fish out your phone in the grocery check-out line when you heard a text come in from a child at home, who asked you if he could use the creme brulee torch to melt a plastic bottle into a Frisbee. (This really happened.)
The closure at the top of the bag was one of those discreet, magnetic button thingies that manages to close the whole bag while also providing instant-open technology, should you want to fish out a lip gloss as you pull into the parking lot at soccer practice and see that your son’s assistant coach is a guy you haven’t seen in twenty-five years, who sat in front of you in high school civics class and doodled pictures of famous athletes in his spiral. (This really happened. His favorite was John Elway.) There was even a little lip stick pocket at the top, near the magnetic button thingy, so the lip stick would nearly leap into your hand in such I-forgot-makeup-today emergencies. And the magnetic button thingy then closes with a quiet little thud that says, “I got this.”
I don’t know enough about fashion to say if the purse was tailored or preppy (is that the same thing now?) or vintage-like or contemporary, but it spoke to me. Possibly, it had an urban-cowboy vibe, appealing to the dichotomy of my Colorado roots and current city of dwelling. It was simple and streamlined and sleek, with no tassels or buckles or nonsense, and the strap was long enough to carry over the shoulder with the bag resting in the little niche where your waist goes in, instead of banging against the hip. No T-rex arms or Monty Burns hands. And the best part: the bottom of the bag was a slender, banana-shaped wedge, making the bag stand up alone when you set it down. Holy crap.
I did not buy the bag. I had an impressionable teenage girl with me, who has a propensity to let money burn a hole in her pocket, and the bag was not cheap. It was not really even reasonable, though purse-people would probably disagree. I cradled it lovingly, and put it back, and I have thought about it for weeks. But today is my 45th birthday, and because I do not have to pick up a child anywhere after school or make dinner, I am going to go see if it is still there, and I am going to buy it. When I get it home, I’m going to lovingly load it up with my wallet and a lip-stick and a collection of short stories by some bad-ass female writer like Edna Ferber. I will be gentle with the purse, but not too gentle, because this purse can take it. If Amelia Earhart was a suburban mom, she’d have this purse. Or Meg Ryan, when she was a super-cute bookstore owner in You’ve Got Mail. Or if Indiana Jones had a daughter who had four kids, she’d have this purse.
It is time for me to let go of some stuff, like my grudge against purses, and my grandmother. It is time for me to embrace who I am, which is someone who needs a purse smaller than a suitcase for an international flight, but larger than a snack-sized sandwich bag. I love that this purse looks good, but more than that I love that it feels right and smells good and holds exactly what I want and can stand alone when I need it to, which, it occurs to me, are some things I love about my husband. But about this purse: I think it could change my life. I think it could be one thing that is exactly what I want, when life is unpredictable and sometimes harder than you thought, and I think it could remind me that I am exactly me, not more and not less, but very capable. I just hope it is still there. Wish me luck.