Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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Not only do I carry a purse every day, but I carry a gigantic one. Usually, it is in an imposing colour – bright red or Kelly green – easy to spot. It has multiple zippers and compartments, and it contains my life.
If anyone needs a Kleenex, or a Tylenol, or a fresh face mask, they know who to go to first. Whatever they require, the likelihood is that I have it. A needle and thread? Got it. Some chocolate? Of course. A Valium? Well, don’t announce it, but I’ve got that too.
The giant purse goes with me everywhere – to the gym, on a walk, to the theatre, to a friend’s home. It is my constant companion and faithful friend. It is cumbersome but necessary.
I am teased mercilessly about this. Usually, women of a certain age like me have resorted to smaller bags, the old beloved fanny pack, a clutch for lipstick and keys. Perhaps a sweet knapsack, something easier on the shoulders than a giant handbag, or maybe a tiny cross-body number or a flap purse.
Mine is always immense with a serviceable zipper across the top and two strong handles – at least two. A pocketbook can come in all the right shades and even be the correct size (massive) and price, but if it doesn’t close properly, it is not one I would even consider purchasing.
And I hold it tightly. If I am sitting at a restaurant, it is around my ankle or touching my arm.
If I removed a credit card to give the number over the phone in the bedroom and did not return my purse to its rightful place on the dining room chair – the first one to the right – things are not pretty in my house.
I sweat and panic until something jogs my memory that the purse might be on my bed. If it happens that I have actually really misplaced it, I go ballistic. Thankfully this has never happened for longer than a minute or two.
I might put the can of coffee in the fridge and leave the milk on the counter, but I always keep tabs on my purse.
Once, while walking in another city, I received a large bump from a large man. My first and natural reaction was to hold onto my purse for dear life and soon the fellow ran away. No victim of purse-snatching, I.
Do I have so much of value in there? Well, sure, if one counts the grave annoyance of having to replace credit cards, a driver’s licence and a medicare card, but that is not what angers me when the purse develops a mind of its own and trots off.
I always have some cash, but never much, and anything else that floats around in that enormous void is easily replaceable. A few hard candies, lip gloss, my glasses, a brush as old as the hills, a few pens that might or might not work, a few … wait, what are those exactly?
On Jan. 24, 1954, my mother and father boarded an Eastern Air Lines flight from New York to Montreal, where their three children waited for their return. My father had been examining some business opportunities in the Big Apple and it was serious enough that my mother went along to look at homes. Thirty minutes into the flight, my father suffered a massive heart attack and died.
For some reason or other, my mother was not carrying a purse. Maybe she depended on my father to have what she needed, or perhaps there was not one available that matched her outfit. Perhaps it was in her packed luggage or left behind on an airport bench. I will never know the reason.
What I do know is that the plane they were on returned back to New York. And upon landing, my mother had to reach into her dead husband’s jacket pocket to get a dime to use the telephone to call the babysitter to tell her she would not be returning that evening as planned.
As if the ordeal of the day hadn’t been enough, this small act traumatized her even further. For the remaining 56 years of her life, I never saw her without a purse.
If she came into my home – a place where she was certainly sure that no one was stealing from her – she needed it beside her. If she went to the washroom, the bag went too. I tried to talk her out of this numerous times, which was, of course, ridiculous of me. Trauma trumps daughter every day.
Ah, the things we inherit!
Now my granddaughters carry those purses but never cling to them. Much better this way. Progress trumps trauma.
Virginia Fisher Yaffe lives in Montreal