Things

My mother has used the same purse for over 30 years. It started out as dark chocolate brown, long rather than wide, with a single buckle strap holding the flap over the purse itself. It contains no inside pockets or zippers. As a teenager, it was one of the few things she owned that didn't embarrass me, not because I liked it but because it was so simple and unremarkable, unlike the JAR of water she carried with her everywhere, often in a plastic Metamucil container that she carried up to eateries in the mall so she could ask the folks behind the counter to take it to their sink and refill it.

But back to the purse. My mother is an environmentalist in nearly every way you can imagine. She doesn't buy things, ever, and reuses to almost an absurd degree (although given the state of our environment, no measures can really be considered absurd). So in her house is the same cookie sheet she's had for the last 30 years, the same towels--despite their bristly texture--the same sheets. Darned socks. Patched underwear. And the same visor--a sort of straw giant thing that extends nearly half a foot out from her forehead; she lines it with strips of cloth to prevent rubbing of the skin. And of course she uses the same purse. It is unevenly striped with wrinkles and cracks and its color is now a pale brown. The shoulder strap deteriorated long ago, so she now carries it under her arm. I asked her a long time ago why she didn't get a new purse.

"I don't really need one," she said. "And I like this one."

I admire my mother very, very much--she is the walk and the talk. She is rich with integrity and character. I didn't always admire her or like her, but I do now because I have thank god matured in many ways. And I was chatting with her today about depression, which she suffers from but treats very successfully; she's also quite knowledgable about how it works--symptoms and the like. I was telling my mother today that I have recently contracted ANOTHER cold that is wiping my ass out and filling my sinuses with what feels like cement.

"I went through a period in my life," she said, "when I got sick a lot. And I remember that I was worrying all the time. Do you worry?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no. You do? That's lowering your resistance." She went on to describe the nature of her worries during that period of her life, and in two sentences about herself she stated exactly how I feel all of the time. I cried, but it was a cry of relief, really, because now I have sort of an answer, a source of what's the matter, and I can do something about it. My mother did, after all.

During our conversation, I was looking at my own purse, flopped over the wooden crate we use as a coffee table in the TV room. I've had it about five years. Longer than it is wide, with an adustable shoulder strap. It started out as dark, dark red. It's getting worn; the seams that hold the purse together, that curve around its shape, are getting whitish. It's quite wrinkled, especially in the fold of the flap. About two years ago, the strap started ripping, and I went shopping for a new purse. Nothing worked. The purses in the department store didn't hang against me the right way; I couldn't adjust the length, and they were all bulky and they felt strange and foreign--nothing felt like the place where I wanted to store the things I use all the time. So I took my old purse to a shoe shop and had it repaired and polished. It's doing fine. I can't imagine using anything else.