Thursday, Day 12: Purse

My sister and I often received purses in our Easter baskets. I remember some of them: the white cloth purse with delicate, embroidered flowers along its edge; the small, shiny black purse with a clasp that snapped in a satisfying (i.e., loud) way; the purse from Greece with an image of Helios, the God of the Sun, driving his chariot.

My favorite purse, though, was a round purse with bulky, smooth, wooden handles and a thin lining. Small, white buttons were sewn into the lining, and one could purchase covers for this purse in a multitude of colors and fabrics that buttoned on. I could now have a new purse every year!

I don’t honestly remember how many covers I accumulated. There is an Easter photo of my sister and me standing on either side of my father. I’m wearing a blue and white striped dress and clutching the purse, which is covered in matching fabric. In another photo, the same purse appears with a cover sporting giant, almost fluorescent flowers. In a third, there is a brown, corduroy cover. Clearly, I made good use of this purse over the years.

But, of course, the purse didn’t last forever. Eventually, the lining wore down and the buttons began to fall off, one by one. They were an unusual size, and even in my grandmother’s gigantic button collection, I couldn’t find suitable buttons to replace them.

I kept the handles for a long time. I loved to run my fingers over the smooth wood. But, at some point they, too, disappeared—lost or purposely thrown away (probably by someone else, without my permission).  

What did I carry around in those purses? Nothing, actually. That was the great secret of those Easter purses. They could be filled, but they never were. There wasn’t anything I really needed to carry around with me in those days.

Now, when I clean out my purse about once a month, I’m always surprised at what I find—old grocery lists, empty chapstick and mint containers, the first two lines of an abandoned poem written on a post-it note, an empty bottle of my daughter’s meds. If only I could slow down enough to pay attention to what I am carrying. I can’t imagine choosing a cover and slowly unfastening and refastening all those buttons—I am in too much of a hurry.

But there are also the things I can’t bear to let go of—the hundreds of books I’ve purchased over the years, the notebooks full of terrible first drafts of my own work, the napkin on which a friend wrote what we considered to be a brilliant idea in college 20 years ago. If I’d had my way, I probably would still have all those Easter purses stashed away somewhere (and honestly, I think I do still have at least a couple of them).

Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron writes, “The essence of generosity is letting go…Giving practice shows us where we’re holding back, where we’re still clinging…The causes of fear and aggression begin to dissolve by themselves when we move past the poverty of holding back and holding on.”

Once, in my 20s, one of my mentors grabbed a book off her bookshelf and handed it to me in the middle of a deep conversation.

I looked at the cover, completely bewildered as to what it had to do with the conversation we were having. I shrugged. “I’ll bring it back after I’ve read it,” I promised.

“No need. You can have it.”

“Are you sure?”

She waved her hand and said, “I’ve finally realized it’s time for me to start un-accumulating things. Take it, and if you’ve ever learned all you can from it, then pass it on.”

I am now her age, but I still have far too many things (including the book she gave me). I wish sometimes that I could go back to a time when I carried a purse just because it was pretty, because I liked the way the clasp sounded or the handles felt in my hands. I wish I could slow down long enough to notice what I’m carrying with me.  I wish I could invite my students and friends over and just let them take books they wanted off my shelves—but admittedly, I’m not quite there yet.

This Easter season may be a good time to choose to carry around an empty purse—well-chosen for the occasion, appreciated for its beauty rather than its functionality—one that has space for what I need rather than being full of what things I don’t need.